On June 17, the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on a draft report assessing progress made by Turkey last year towards EU accession. The document calls for the sanctioning of the country’s justice minister, Akin Gurlek.

Prepare for a bit of noise. Political actors, who in fact conduct a purely transactional relationship between the EU and the Turkish government, will take to the media for a quick bang on the drum.

Clickbait with minimal real world impact

The report may generate some sensational headlines in the media, but the story will serve as yet another piece of clickbait with minimal real-world policy impact.

The previous morsel of red meat thrown to the press hounds on EU-Turkey relations concerned a gaffe made by president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, in which she spoke of Turkey in the same breath as Russia and China.

That which makes it into the slack-brained media on Turkish-EU relations is surreal and ignorant. Turkey’s neverending status as an EU candidate is pure comedy.

In real life, real business goes on.

Routinely ignored

Resolutions from the European Parliament are non-binding. They can serve as political bellwethers, they can caress European voters, but they carry no legislative weight, they can enforce no policy action.

The European Council, made up of the heads of state of the 27 EU member countries, rules. The European Commission does the paperwork.

Historically, the Commission routinely ignores or bypasses resolutions passed by the Parliament. And the papers do not even arrive in the in-trays of those with the real power, meaning those who control the Council.

Cheap exercises

Go beyond the limitations of the European Parliament and you find that sanctions are, anyway, not effective policy tools. They are cheap exercises in public relations.

On paper, sanctions are supposed to seize targets’ financial assets. However, even if they were able to achieve the required access, it is questionable how much they would hurt those sanctioned. A bigger farce is seen when you consider that no politician maintains international bank accounts or holds vulnerable assets under their own name abroad.

In this specific instance with Gurlek, the gap between rhetoric and reality is even wider. The European Parliament actually has no power to even impose a sanction, nonsensical or not.

What we have here is merely the leveraging of a single sentence into a preliminary draft report to produce a public relations stir as regards Turkey. You’d be a real loser to think it amounts to anything more than that.

It’s the boss or nothing in this reality

Targeting a Turkish minister in this way misinterprets, deliberately or otherwise, the highly centralised nature of Ankara’s decision-making power structure. Given Turkey's current executive presidential system, sanctioning a member of the cabinet is politically indistinguishable from sanctioning the president’s pen.

While the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, moves his pen with his hand to set down administrative decrees, he directs his ministers with his mouth, issuing direct orders on what, in reality, should be done exactly.

Attempting to penalise a subordinate in the presidency in this way ignores the reality that ultimate authority rests entirely with the president. But given the European Parliament’s powerlessness, effectively addressing reality is really not its strong point.

Slovenian MEP wades in

Behind the scenes, there is active lobbying from Turkish officials who are pressing European lawmakers to drop the specific targeting of Gurlek before the final text goes to the floor, Vladimir Prebilic, a Slovenian member of the European Parliament, told T24 on June 12 in an interview.

It was this interview that first publicised the affair.

Photo: Prebilic (front row, middle) poses with Turkish journalists as part of his public diplomacy trip (@hilmihacaloglu). Though they were engrossed in serious talks, Prebilic, local journalist Hilmi Hacaloglu and T24 were also able to share photos as they talked.

Prebilic (@VPrebilic), who represents Slovenia within the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance at the European Parliament, was in Istanbul on June 11. The MEP attended a court hearing held at Silivri Prison, where jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and members of the alleged network of corruption he is accused of leading, have their cells.

The European lawmaker also posed with Dilek Kaya Imamoglu (@dk_imamoglu), the wife of Ekrem Imamoglu.

“Fascinated by the courage and determination of @dk_imamoglu and whole @chppartimeclisi team to fight for justice and democracy in Türkiye,” Prebilic wrote on X.

He was obviously a bit unclear on the role of “@chppartimeclisi,” which describes itself as a “Republican People’s Party fan page”.

Which CHP did Prebilic meet?

The Republican People’s Party, or CHP, is right now torn by division. On May 21, a court reappointed Kemal Kilicdaroglu as party chair, deposing his successor Ozgur Ozel, who won the leadership in a contest with Kilicdaroglu at a party congress held in November 2023.

Prebilic and Dilek Kaya Imamoglu both shared photos from held meetings on X. However, they made no mention of Ozel or Kilicdaroglu. Whom Prebilic met from the CHP management is unknown.

Still there

“@ekrem_imamoglu needs to be immediately released from prison and return to office! Europe stands in solidarity with him and his family!” Prebilic tweeted.

As of June 14, Imamoglu remained in jail. He had not returned to office.

Slovenian balancing act

On February 12, the day after he was sworn into the justice minister post at parliament, with fisticuffs breaking out all around him, Gurlek actually hosted a Slovenian delegation.

“We welcomed the speaker of the national assembly of Slovenia, Her Excellency Urska Klakocar Zupancic, and her delegation at our ministry,” Gurlek (@abakingurlek) posted on social media.

“In our meeting, we discussed our cooperation in the field of justice, which constitutes an important and complementary dimension of the relations between our countries,” he added.

“We held very productive evaluations regarding the mutual exchange of experiences and the strengthening of institutional contacts… We appreciated Slovenia’s stance in recognising the State of Palestine,” he also wrote.

What are we to make of things? Perhaps that Prebilic’s ‘unfriendly’ visit can be observed as the completion of a successful balancing act performed by Slovenia’s political elites?

Gall of Gurlek

Gurlek has become aware of Prebilic’s public relations expedition into Turkey. The justice minister (@abakingurlek) has been tweeting in response, denying and downplaying all accusations.

“European Parliament reports, however, are merely advisory political texts. Targeting the judicial institutions of the Republic of Turkey through such documents is a futile effort,” said Gurlek.

“It would also be fitting for a Member of the European Parliament, whose career has been a subject of debate across various fronts, ranging from their tenure in municipal governance to election campaign processes, to reflect on the discussions surrounding transparency, ethics and accountability that have surfaced in the public eye regarding their own political career,” he added.

The effrontery. The gall.