Turkey’s FM Fidan: Relations with EU ‘Different’—Good with Member States, Not the Bloc

Reflecto News | Europe-Turkey Relations | Geopolitics

VIENNA — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has drawn a sharp distinction between Ankara’s ties with the European Union as an institution and its relations with individual European nations, noting that while bilateral relations are “very good,” the dynamic with Brussels is fundamentally different.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Vienna alongside Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Fidan elaborated on Turkey’s long-standing and largely stalled EU accession process, which has been frozen since 2018 despite Turkey being a candidate since 1999.

“With individual European countries, our relations are very good. But with the EU as a whole, it’s different.”
— Hakan Fidan, Turkish Foreign Minister

🤝 Good Bilateral Relations: The Evidence

Fidan’s claim that Turkey enjoys strong ties with individual European nations is supported by recent diplomatic and economic data.

Key Bilateral Partnerships

• Germany: Chancellor Olaf Scholz and now Chancellor Friedrich Merz have maintained a complex but functional relationship with Ankara. Germany is Turkey’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade volume exceeding €50 billion annually. Berlin also hosts the largest Turkish diaspora in Europe (approximately 3 million people of Turkish origin).
• France: President Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy, while at times critical of Erdoğan, has sought to compartmentalize disagreements (Libya, Eastern Mediterranean) from economic ties. France is a major investor in Turkey’s automotive and defense sectors.
• United Kingdom: Post-Brexit, the UK signed a comprehensive free trade agreement with Turkey, expanding cooperation in defense and technology.
• Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Greece): Despite political rivalry with Greece, Turkey signed a key migration deal with the EU (2016) and maintains constant dialogue with Athens to avoid Aegean escalation.
• Austria: Host of the press conference, Vienna has been a hub for Turkish migrants for decades, and economic ties, particularly in banking and construction, remain close.

Turkey’s Customs Union with the EU (since 1995) remains in effect, facilitating €250 billion in annual trade, a figure Ankara believes could double to €500 billion with modernization of the agreement.

🚧 The EU as a Whole: A Very Different Dynamic

Fidan’s claim that relations with “the EU as a whole” are strained is an understatement.

The Institutional Standoff

• Accession Talks Frozen: Formal accession negotiations have been effectively frozen since 2018, with the EU Parliament voting repeatedly to suspend the process due to concerns over democratic backsliding, rule of law, and human rights under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
• Visa Liberalization: The EU has resisted granting Turkish citizens visa-free travel, a major source of frustration for Ankara, even though Turkey has technically met most of the 72 EU benchmarks.
• Customs Union Stalemate: Despite years of technical negotiations, the EU has been unable to agree to update the Customs Union to cover agriculture, services, and public procurement—a step Ankara sees as a test of Brussels’ good faith.
• Cyprus Obstruction: A key political obstacle remains the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member that is not recognized by Turkey, which has blocked numerous EU-Turkey initiatives.
• Rule of Law Conditionality: The EU has tied modernization of relations to democratic reforms in Turkey, which Brussels says have been backsliding since the 2016 coup attempt and the subsequent purges.

Fidan’s characterization points to a paradox: even when Ankara meets technical criteria (e.g., migration control, customs procedures), the political will to integrate Turkey is absent at the institutional level. This is why Fidan and other Turkish officials now speak of the EU as an “instrumental” partner rather than a “membership” goal.

🌍 Broader Context: Europe’s New Security Needs

The question of EU-Turkey relations has taken on new urgency since the war in Ukraine began, with the conflict in the Middle East adding additional pressures.

• NATO and Russia: Turkey has blocked Sweden’s NATO membership (since resolved) but played a key role in brokering the Black Sea Grain Initiative, positioning itself as an indispensable intermediary between Russia and the West.
• Migration: The 2016 EU-Turkey migration deal, which has reduced irregular crossings into Greece, is still considered crucial for Europe. However, Ankara has threatened to “open the gates” for migrants several times to extract political concessions.
• Energy: Turkey is developing natural gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean and could serve as an energy hub for Southern European gas supplies, potentially reducing EU dependence on Russian energy.

These strategic factors suggest that even if EU membership is off the table, neither side can afford to sever ties. It is this functional interdependence that makes Fidan’s “different” relationship both a source of frustration and a practical reality.

📉 Is There a Way Out?

Turkish officials have increasingly signaled that membership is no longer a realistic short-term goal. Instead, Ankara is pushing for positive agenda talks focused on trade, migration, counter-terrorism, and energy—i.e., the “bilateral” approach that Fidan says works well.

The EU, for its part, has signaled a willingness to modernize the Customs Union without reviving the political accession framework. Whether that will satisfy Turkish demands remains to be seen.

Fidan’s comment—”with individual European countries, our relations are very good”—is both a jab at Brussels and an opening. It suggests that Ankara may now prefer a web of bilateral deals over the monolithic, stalled EU accession track. For the EU, the risk is that the bloc’s collective leverage over Turkish domestic policy (rule of law, human rights) diminishes as Turkey shifts to bilateralism.

As Fidan suggested, the ball is now in the EU’s court: if the bloc cannot summon the political will to integrate Turkey further, Ankara will continue to cultivate its “very good” bilateral relationships—and leave the EU institution on the outside.

📋 Key Takeaways for Reflecto News Readers

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