Turkish Prime Minister in Germany: Compliments and Controversy
Will Turkey become a full member of the European Union? The underlying debate centers on whether it would bring too much Islamist influence into the EU.
by Paul Kieffer
Emotions ran high in the German city of Ludwigshafen at the beginning of February when a fire in an older apartment building claimed the lives of nine Turks.
The fire on Feb. 3 had Turkish newspapers writing about arson as a possible cause and wondering whether emergency personnel in Ludwigshafen had responded quickly enough to the blaze. Dramatic film footage captured parents throwing an infant out of an upstairs window to save the child's life.
German officials immediately began work on determining the cause of the fire, which most likely was the result of an electrical short circuit in the basement of the building.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, already scheduled to open the annual Munich Conference on Security on Feb. 9, decided to visit Ludwigshafen on his way to Munich. About 2,500 people gathered in a prominent square to hear Prime Minister Erdogan's comments on the disaster. With the cause of the fire still undetermined, one person in the crowd held a sign with the words "Yesterday the Jews, today the Muslims," implying that the fire was arson.
In the charged atmosphere following the fire, Erdogan's speech in Ludwigshafen had an immediate calming effect. He said that Germans and Turks were united in their sorrow, and he made a point of publicly thanking German authorities for their quick reaction to calls for help. His acknowledgment effectively defused earlier criticism of what was perceived to be a delayed response.
In light of Erdogan's later comments during his visit to Germany, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble defended Erdogan's words, praising his "considerable contribution to de-escalation" of the tense situation following the tragic loss of life.
No "privileged partnership" for Turkey
Two days after his visit to Ludwigshafen, Erdogan's speech officially opened the annual Munich Conference on Security. Erdogan wasted no time in stating his country's position on the question of EU membership. As his foreign minister had done two weeks earlier in Davos during the World Economic Forum, Erdogan again rejected the notion that Turkey would accept a "privileged partnership" as an alternative to full membership in the European Union. "We know where we want to be," he emphasized, "and that is full membership."
