Erdogan was a gift for Greece …
By Kostas Stoupas
1) Erdogan was a gift for Greece …
The recent publication of the valid Foreign Policy about a possible illness of the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be hiding more importance for Greece than the one he has dedicated.
“Erdogan may be too ill to continue to be Turkey,” the statement said, adding that there were indications that he may be too ill to run for re-election.
What could Erdogan’s absence from the neighbor’s central political scene mean for Greece?
The first question is whether Erdogan’s absence will weaken the Islamist nationalist front that has led the country for the past 20 years.
The second question concerns the possibility of the Kemalist opposition parties returning to power and repeating themselves in Turkey’s western orientation.
In both cases things will not be easy. Erdogan’s rise to power is the result of a shift in Turkish society away from Western values and closer to Islam and Asia.
The shift had demographic causes mainly as it resulted from the faster growth of the populations favored by these values compared to the west-facing populations living mainly on the coast.
Even if the Kemalists return, they will have no task of returning to the West.
On the other hand, the Kemalist revolution will change the US attitude towards Turkey and will further facilitate the work of the EU countries. with Germany as its leader, who wanted a closer rapprochement with its neighbor, sometimes ignoring Greek concerns.
A possible influence of Turkey in the West as it was in the last half of the last century will be clarified by the continuation of Turkey’s armament with effective Western weapons such as F-35s, Patriots, German submarines, which would be authorized part of the balance. and supremacy that designs Greece with the French Rafale and the French frigates.
The lifting of the embargo of many countries on Turkey will cancel the gradual disuse of the existing equipment, the replacement of which with Russian optical systems would prove to be costly with dubious results.
A possible full influence of Turkey in the West will accelerate Turkish industrialization and progress in several cutting-edge technological areas. Turkey as an economy has a complementary role in European economies, replacing the role of China and other Asian markets as factories of the West.
Turkey’s long-term withdrawal from the West will prove disastrous for the Turkish economy, as neither Russia nor its Muslim countries are trying to absorb exports to the West.
On the plus side, the return of a neighbor to the West is the smoothing of migratory flows through Turkey, which uses them in an “instrumental” and extortionate way.
Also, the neo-Ottoman plans to be conceived by the Sunnis of a wider area will go into the drawer and we may see them liberated from countries such as Syria, Libya, etc.
In addition, in the context of this return, Turkey may demand concessions to the detriment of Greece.
Ending Turkish support for organizations and bodies such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas will normalize relations with countries such as Egypt, Israel, etc., while halting Russia’s growing influence in the wider region.
Erdogan’s gifts …
The shift of Turkey to the East, where it was expressed politically with the rise of Erdogan, was a cornerstone of tectonic geopolitical upheavals in the wider region.
Greece has developed strong ties with countries such as Israel, Egypt, the UAE.
Israel with the “Abraham Accords” came out of isolation in the region …
After decades of “aphasia”, Greece began to delimit the EEZ with neighboring countries and pursues a multifaceted foreign diplomacy.
For the first time in many decades, Greece reached a defense assistance agreement from France that is part of Greek sovereignty, which changes a considerable balance of power in the country of 80 million to 700 billion GDP and a country with a population of 10 million and 180 billion GDP.
After the events in Evros, Europe began to realize the importance of a Greece capable of effectively managing border control within the framework of international law and Western humanity.
If the FP report is true, we will miss Erdogan …
2) We understand what is happening around us
Good morning K. Stoupa,
I watch almost daily your analyzes which are always interesting.
For almost 10 months we have been observing that the transition to post-covid “normality” and the increase in demand from the most developed countries can not be supported by the global factory Southeast Asia due to the prolonged pandemic crisis. This results in the transfer of a huge volume of orders to the factories of China which in turn are constantly increasing prices since their dynamics are much lower demand.
Rising living standards in China over the past 10 years are causing a shift in labor from the industrial service, as it used to be from land workers to factories. Today, given the bad situation in countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, Myanmar, etc., the only alternative remains China, which today is called to close factories for 15 days a month due to lack of energy reserves and rising natural gas prices. gas. This results in further increases from factories to their western customers reaching a large amount of blackmail. From a personal example I typically mention that when in February 2021 a item was sewn with US $ 1.35 today we ask for US $ 3.45 and delivery times are almost at never!
Supply chain arrhythmias caused by continuous lockdowns continue to worsen instead of appearing normal. Importers are reluctant to ask about shipping costs but are begging to find empty containers without anyone being able to secure even a reasonable transit time as doubling the shipping time does not want to be the rule!
Those who hold the gas taps are expressing their own benefit (given that, as you have rightly described, Europe has decided to get rid of polluting energy sources without providing credible alternatives).
In line with all of the above, conclusions on all kinds of reports and inflation are one-way and do not seem to be at all “temporary” as the US & European central banks rushed to assess. Personally, when I heard these announcements, they drew a parallel with Erdogan’s policy of trying to reduce interest rates to tame inflation for fear of massive corporate bankruptcies, obviously. For the same reason, the ESF is trying to convince that there is no reason to increase interest rates since the inflationary pressures read them as temporary.
The truth is that any decision is a cliff front and a back stream. Whatever decision is made, we are not going to get out of this situation that we have in front of us. Unfortunately for us as a country if we are not given the time to prove that we have changed course and that now in a state of calm if not with strong winds we will be able to increase investment and enter our virtuous circle, a repeat of 2010 is expected – hopefully shorter intensity.
Yours sincerely
T.K.