On Thursday 27 August, several Foreign Ministers, upon arriving at their informal meeting in Berlin, called for appeasement in the eastern Mediterranean, where tensions are high between Athens and Ankara.
Romanian Minister Bogdan Aurescu, while recalling his solidarity with Cyprus and Greece, called for “calm, appeasement, dialogue and the resumption of negotiations in order to find a solution in accordance with the legitimate interests of the parties and in conformity with international law”.
Negotiations look set to be difficult as Greece, Cyprus, France and Italy are currently conducting military exercises in the maritime area and Turkey announced on the same day that it will hold firing exercises on 1 and 2 September in an area north-east of Cyprus.
“We need a diplomatic solution to this conflict. (...). Nobody wants to resolve this conflict with warships”, explained German Minister Heiko Maas, adding that everything possible would be done to ensure that no military confrontation takes place.
The Minister, who is trying to mediate between Ankara and Athens, warned that the preconditions for negotiations were the end of the manoeuvres, “so that everyone can make their contribution and create the necessary space for diplomatic talks”. “It is unlikely that the parties will sit down at the same table if warships are facing each other in the eastern Mediterranean”, he added, calling the situation still “very difficult”.
On behalf of the Commission, Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi called on the Turkish authorities to help Europeans to ease tensions. “Nothing fruitful will come out of these tensions”, he warned, adding that Turkey’s possible EU membership was called into question by these actions.
And while the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy was to present Ministers with “options” for action towards Turkey, Cypriot Minister Níkos Khristodoulídis felt that the EU’s credibility was at stake, recalling Turkey’s illegal and provocative actions against two Member States. “EU solidarity must be real and substantial”, he added.
The issue of relations with Turkey will be on the agenda of an extraordinary European Council on 24 and 25 September. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant and Agathe Cherki)