As things stand now, “impasse” would be the best word to describe the current state of Turkey-EU relations: accession talks have long stalled, Ankara and Brussels disagree on many issues, but they still refuse to put an end to this troubled and turbulent affair.

This is because, quite apart from the commercial and trade ties, they do not dare to place their valuable strategic partnership – built up over the past five decades – in jeopardy, especially now when they are confronting common enemies and threats, notably Islamic State and the Syrian conflict.

Nobody is quite sure at the moment how Turkey’s increasingly complicated relations with the EU will evolve in the months to come. And there are no easy answers to how to fix this stormy relationship.

Despite all the ups and downs in the relationship, Erdogan reiterated only this month that membership of the EU was still Ankara’s strategic target. It is, however, hard to see how Turkey’s admission to the bloc could be possible when the EU thinks Turkey still fails to meet some basic criteria on the rule of law, respect for human rights and press freedom.

For its part, the Ankara government rejects criticism that the quality of its democracy has declined over the past couple of years. It, on the contrary, says that Turkey has done a lot to improve and safeguard freedoms but the EU just tries to find excuses to keep Turkey at bay.

Against this backdrop, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travelled to Brussels on May 25 for what some commentators saw as an attempt to repair ties that had been further strained during the April referendum in Turkey, with Erdogan accusing several European countries of “Nazi-like” practices for blocking his ministers from attending pro-Erdogan rallies on their soil.

In Brussels, on the sidelines of a Nato summit, Erdogan held talks with Council of Europe President Donald Tusk, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker and President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani.

Some commentators had expected the highly-anticipated Brussels summit to be a “make or break” moment for Turkey-EU relations. But, nothing solid came out of Erdogan’s talks with top EU leaders, their first in nine months.

Following the meeting, the leaders did not say anything about whether they had agreed to take steps to improve ties or to move Ankara’s EU bid forward. No official statements were made, there was no joint press conference after the meetings, and only a couple of tweets were posted by EU officials. “We discussed the need to co-operate. I put the question of human rights in the centre of our discussions with Erdogan,” Tusk said on Twitter. “Frank and constructive meeting Erdogan, waiting now for positive signal from his side on death penalty and freedom of press,” Tajani tweeted.

In Brussels, Erdogan also had a hard talk with German Chancellor Angela Merkel amid tensions between the two countries over Ankara’s refusal to grant permission to German lawmakers to visit their soldiers stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, which is being used in operations against Islamic State. Merkel told Erdogan that Berlin would pull its soldiers from the air base unless Turkey lets German politicians visit the site, Bloomberg reported. It is not known how Erdogan responded to Merkel.

While Erdogan and Merkel discussed their differences over Incirlik, Nato leaders at the headquarters of the Alliance agreed to do more to fight terrorism. “Nato will become a full member of the global coalition, in which all 28 allies already take part,” said Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The alliance will increase its support for the coalition, with Nato Awacs surveillance planes helping to improve airspace management.

This was something Erdogan wanted to hear from Nato: more co-operation in the fight against all kind of terror groups, including Islamic State. But it remains to be seen whether Nato’s new strategy to get more involved in anti-IS operations will sideline Turkey or on the contrary demand closer cooperation between Ankara and the Alliance.

At the same time, Erdogan’s flirtation with Russian President Vladimir Putin has worried some Nato countries. In particular, Turkey’s plans to buy the S-400 advanced air defence missile system from Russia has raised eyebrows in Western capitals. Talks between Ankara and Moscow on the missile system have matured, but the two countries need to sort out some price issues, Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik said on May 10.

Where from here?

The mood of the sycophantic Turkish press towards the Brussels summit was nevertheless jubilant: “Foreign leaders lined up to meet with Erdogan” read Star newspaper’s headline, while Sabah said: “Erdogan issued warnings to European leaders in the heart of Europe: revive accession talks, keep your promises towards Turkey and put forward new road map for Turkey-EU relations”.

The headlines reflect Ankara’s assumption that “the European Union needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the bloc” – the words of Erdogan back in April last year, shortly after Turkey signed the migrant deal with Europe.

“Despite the public pressure in their respective countries to isolate Turkey because of the criticisms over judicial independence and media freedom, especially after the July foiled military coup and the resultant state of emergency, EU leaders seemingly decided to try to improve relations through dialogue,” wrote Murat Yetkin on May 26 in an article for Hurriyet Daily News.

According to Yetkin, the first impression suggests that European leaders have said what they wanted to say to Erdogan in person and that the meetings provided a test for Erdogan that showed “there is still room to manoeuvre to reanimate relations with the West”.

It remains to be seen whether Erdogan has any concrete plans that could put Turkey’s relations with the EU back on the right track. In the next couple of weeks, Erdogan is expected to unveil a comprehensive road map of economic and social policies that could help his ruling AKP win the next elections in 2019. According to media reports, his road map will also include elements regarding the relations with the EU.

“In an ideal world, Turkey’s leadership would want the EU to take a lenient view of the country’s dire human rights conditions, vastly degraded rule-of-law architecture. This is simply not going to happen,” wrote Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey, in an article for Carnegie Europe on May 22. “Ankara’s second-best option would be to carry on with the EU on trade and investment matters irrespective of governance issues, in the name of Turkey’s strategic importance. This is not going to happen either,” he added.

According to Pierini, the road to pacification between European and Turkish leaders is very constrained and it will depend on a few goodwill measures by Turkey and a mutual agreement on a package of priority steps.

For that matter, Yetkin argues that opening chapters 23 and 24 on the judiciary and freedoms could provide a win-win opportunity for all. For Turkey, says Yetkin, it would be a sign that there is an improvement in relations with EU; for the EU, it would offer leverage to discuss those critical matters with the Turkish government and it could help improve the quality of democracy and rights in the country.

However, most analysts believe that as things stand now the EU is not likely to open new chapters in accession talks but still may negotiate an upgraded customs union agreement.  Meanwhile Turkey and the bloc could continue to cooperate on security and refugee issues in the foreseeable future while choosing to postpone discussing their core differences.

“Clearly there is a realisation on both sides that ties will have to continue for pragmatic reasons. Maintaining the ‘white lie’ of Turkey’s eventual membership in the EU — provided necessary conditions are met — to enable cooperation on the practical level to continue will most likely be the formula the sides come up with,” argued Semiz Idiz in an article for Al Monitor.