Erdoğan's U-turn on EU because of failing economy, says Babacan

Photo: AA

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The government's recent change in discourse about Europe is related to the "sinking economy," according to Ali Babacan, the chair of the Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party, who was also in charge of the country's economy until 2015.

"When they started to realize that they sank the economy, they began to talk about the European Union," he told his party's provincial congress in Kastamonu yesterday (November 22), referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's remarks from a day earlier.

Erdoğan had said, "We see ourselves in not other places but Europe, we envisage our future together with Europe," during a virtual speech addressing his Justice and Development Party's provincial organizations.

After Joe Biden's election as the US President, Erdoğan has promised legal and economic reforms, as well as replacing his son-in-law Berat Albayrak as the minister of treasury and finance, a move that he said was "in accordance with global political changes."

Babacan said that the president had turned the country inward with his anti-western rhetoric for years and was only changing this after the economy sank.

Prior to Albayrak's replacement, the Turkish lira hit a record low against the US dollar and has slightly recovered since then. 

"What does this mean? This means they came to their senses after the economy hit rock bottom," he said, adding that the government wouldn't think about human rights at all if Turkey had oil and natural gas resources to sell.

He also mockingly warned Erdoğan that the journalists and "trolls" that follow him were not able to keep up with his sharp U-turns.

Babacan further criticized the president for his silence about the public threats by a former convict of organized crime against Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the chair of the main opposition Republican People's Party. (VK)