How Recep Tayyip Erdogan seduces Turkish migrants in Europe

EUROPE’S relations with Turkey have long been coloured by mutual fascination, dependence and mistrust. Spellbound after visiting Constantinople in 1898, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany wrote to his friend Tsar Nicholas II, “If I had come there without any religion at all, I certainly would have turned Mahommetan!” But if today’s Europeans rely on this awkward partner to keep refugees away and share intelligence on terrorists, Turkey’s slide into paranoid authoritarianism under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes it a far less enticing partner. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said this week that Turkey is leaving Europe with “giant steps”.

The relationship is complicated by the economic and military ties that bind Turkey and Europe, but above all by the large number of Turks, and their descendants, living in Europe. The Turkish diaspora numbers over 6m, most of them in western Europe. For years Mr Erdogan has delivered rousing speeches to vast rallies in cities like Cologne, urging European Turks to make their way in their adopted homes but to reject attempts at assimilation—and hinting that the triumphs he has brought Turkey are theirs to share. Mr Erdogan is the first Turkish leader to take the diaspora seriously, and it shows. In a referendum in April 59% of diaspora Turks backed his controversial proposals to extend presidential powers, compared with just over half at home. Mr Erdogan has three aims in attending to the diaspora, says Sinan Ulgen, an analyst in Istanbul: to advance Turkish interests abroad, to seduce nationalists at home, and to stack up votes in his deeply polarised country.