Why Europe is closely watching Turkey’s election run-off

Good morning. The UK and EU have agreed to cooperate on curbing irregular migration across the English Channel, in yet another sign of warming London-Brussels relations. And Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas has urged her country’s companies to stop helping Russia circumvent trade sanctions in an interview with the FT.

Today, our Berlin correspondent explains what more Erdoğan would mean for Europe, and our trade supremo unpacks the EU’s warmth towards India, regardless of Russian oil.

More of the same

Europe is closely watching the outcome of the Turkish elections as Sweden’s bid for Nato membership and Ankara’s relations with the EU hang in the balance, writes Laura Pitel.

Context: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan emerged as the clear favourite after the vote on Sunday, finishing five points ahead of his main rival. But as neither candidate reached the needed 50 per cent, a run-off will be held on May 28.

The first big foreign policy test for the winner will be the question of Sweden’s Nato membership, which has been blocked by Ankara for the past year. Western officials hope to seal the deal on Stockholm’s accession at a Nato summit in Vilnius in July.

Erdoğan, who has accused Sweden of acting as a “guest house” for Kurdish terrorists, has long been a mercurial partner. He caused drama in June last year by doing a deal with Sweden and Finland (whose Nato bid he later approved) only to impose new conditions at the last minute.

If he wins the second round, the Turkish president may well try to extract concessions from Washington in exchange for approving Stockholm’s bid, according to Eric Edelman, a former US ambassador to Turkey.

That could include progress on Ankara’s stalled bid to upgrade its fleet of fighter jets, which has faced opposition from Congress. “He’ll try and get something on F-16s, maybe extort a face-to-face meeting at the summit with Biden,” Edelman says.

But even then, it is not clear if the Turkish leader would give Sweden the green light.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s own accession bid — for the EU — is widely seen as dead and unlikely to be resuscitated no matter who wins.

The prospect of improvement in areas such as a modernised customs union with the EU or visa-free travel to the Schengen zone for Turkish citizens, is directly tied to progress on “freeing political prisoners, guaranteeing freedom of speech and reinstating basic principles of judicial independence,” says Nils Schmid, a member of the German Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee and a longtime Turkey watcher.

While opposition challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has promised to do all of the above, “so far, Erdoğan has not been willing to do that,” says Schmid.

If the Turkish president wins again, he predicts “more of the same” with Europe.

Chart du jour: Long catch-up

Brussels has proposed that 40 per cent of green technologies used in the EU should also be produced inside the bloc by 2030. But a report by Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel shows that, in many areas, China is still dominating manufacturing capacity in clean tech and its components.

Gestures

A press conference after yesterday’s inaugural EU-India trade and technology council featured three Indian ministers, two European commissioners — and no Josep Borrell, writes Andy Bounds.

Context: Just before the meeting, Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, had suggested that Brussels should block imports from Indian refineries that use Russian oil bought at rock bottom prices. Russian oil is subject to EU sanctions and the bloc is working to crack down on sanctions circumvention.

India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who met Borrell yesterday, defended the imports. “My understanding of the council regulations is that if Russian crude is substantially transformed in a third country, it is not treated as Russian anymore”, and therefore not barred from entering the EU.

Even Borrell’s colleague, Margrethe Vestager, distanced herself from his remarks, confirming that Jaishankar was correct. “Of course it is a discussion that we will have with friends but it is with extended hands, not with a pointed finger,” the competition commissioner said.

Hands were definitely extended at yesterday’s meeting, as the parties talked about co-operating to build supply chains, quantum computers and to set regulations on software and artificial intelligence.

One hot topic was collaboration on semiconductors to avoid reliance on a “one particular geography”, said technology minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Indian ministers generally kept referring to their open, transparent market and democratic values, in contrast to, er, “one particular geography” (it’s China).

Piyush Goyal, the trade minister, even talked of the EU and India forming the “defining partnership of the 21st century”, although talks for a trade deal are tough.

Business is buying, though. Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, head of the tech industry group DigitalEurope, said there was “unlimited potential given India’s size” and its “huge talent pool”.

What to watch today

1. Council of Europe summit closes in Reykjavik.

2. German defence minister Boris Pistorius hosts his British counterpart Ben Wallace in Berlin.

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