Turkey Thread

[AE Bravo]

Erdogan goes against a whole lot of democratic values, the whole torturing in prisons and other human rights abuses are still not out of the way, then you have the unwillingness to even aknowledge past crimes, new crimes against the Kurdish population, possible ties to ISIS and so on. Where in this do you see a backing of liberal European values?
You can tell me all day how some EU countries do or at least support similar things but none of that is mainstream public perception and that is what counts. Politicians don't get elected based on the truth but on the mainstream public perception. Or you could say it is about how Europeans want to see their countries even if they fail to be like that and Turkey does not fit this at all.

So being one of the top three (?) trade partners, supporting European interests in the frontline of the most sensitive region, and having a potential democratic future isn’t enough to be promised something in the next few decades. You do realize that one of the initial aims of this whole thing was to provide incentive for reform? It’s torn between two worlds, and it basically got told to f off for not committing to anything at the doorstep right off the bat.

Maybe you should decide first whether the EU is a "value community" or a security community. I don't see Turkey totally abandoning its political Islam tendencies as that undermines its interesting position in the middle east.

I have absolutely no idea on what grounds visa-free travel is given and there is usually about zero public discussion on the topic when it happens. In fact I did not even know that, you bring about the least relevant point here when it comes to public perception of other countries because visa restrictions do not seem to reflect public perception at all in this case.
And please explain how this visa-situation is one-dimensional, do you know they used only one criterium to decide this or are you just making this up?

Counterterrorism legislation was one of the two criterium used, which in Turkey is virtually identical to the other states that were granted this. I don’t think it’s as irrelevant as you make it out to be because 1) This was one of the first things to be implemented, so obviously a priority in that regard and 2) for the reason that arbitrary, and in some cases discriminatory, travel restrictions affect public perception.