It would be most useful if, in the nascent tension between Greece and Turkey, the European Union avoided its usual mistake: trying not to get involved, and then, when it does act, doing so in a way that exacerbates the problem rather than solving it. We know that it is much to ask of member-states and European institutions that they overturn their deeply rooted practice of letting problems fester until they find themselves before a crisis, in which case they will have to do more than what they tried to avoid.
We saw this in the inexcusable delay and sophistry in how they handled the Greek debt crisis, in their willful blindness in the face of Vladimir Putin’s belligerence, in their deep sleep before Donald Trump’s second coming. Besides the fact that all these errors cost the Union dearly, the omens are again bad, for an added reason: the member-states and institutions don’t know what to do about Turkey, which, on the one hand, has been part of the Western security architecture for close to eight decades, and, on the other, presents a direct challenge to European principles with its behavior.
The situation is complicated further by the Union’s difficulty in adopting Greek interests as its own, especially regarding Turkey’s questioning of Greek sovereignty. Aside from the Evros crisis in 2020, when the Union was afraid that a breach of the Greek border (by migrants pushed there by the Turkish government) would lead to a new influx of immigrants into the rest of Europe, most countries and the institutions don’t take a decisive stand against Turkish claims and outrageous demands. This allows them to become established and provoke new problems. This is either because many member-states seek gains from bilateral cooperation with Turkey, or because they don’t feel that Greece’s borders and sovereign rights are theirs, too. That’s why it is crucial that this time the EU shows clearly that it will not tolerate questioning of what are its own borders and rights. The Union itself must amplify French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent message from Athens, when he declared that if Greece’s sovereignty is threatened, “know that we will be here.”
