Tag Archives: turkish

Something is Something

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The Turkish Justice and Development party (AKP) seems to be backing down on the criminalisation of adultery agenda. This is a welcome development and, for once, an example of where targeted EU pressure may be effective. It also seems to be the case that external pressure is working in tandem with internal processes for once:

Civil rights groups demonstrated outside parliament as the debate got under way, complaining that other clauses in the penal code discriminated against women or intruded into people?s personal lives…………..Political analysts said the adultery measure may have been forced on him (Erdogan) by arch-conservatives in the AKP and in a small Islamic party that is influential with Muslim opinion but is not represented in parliament. They said it was too early to say what the consequences of the climbdown might be, although it was unlikely to end the debate about whether such legislation was necessary. AKP officials did not return calls seeking comment.

The decision to drop the measure was greeted with relief by Turkish and European officials. ?This proposal was a momentary lapse of reason, which we hope has now passed,? said a Turkish official.

Clearly there is much more to do, but this is a start. As I say: something is something.

Oh What A Tangled Web!

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Whilst noting that the EU Commission is trying to gently nudge Turkey on the criminalisation of adultery issue – European Commission spokesman Jean-Christophe Filori told a Brussels news conference that the proposed law “could trigger confusion and damage the perception in the European Union of Turkey’s reform efforts” – this post is not an attempt to re-open the useful and interesting exchange of views that took place around a previous post.

What I would like to do today is focus on another dimension of the same problem – the Turkish state’s relations with its own Kurdish minority – and how this relationship could become increasingly complicated depending on how the internal stability of Iraq evolves.
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Time To Smell The Coffee

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You can smell the coffee now: this is the opinion of Morgan Stanley’s Serhan Cevik referring to the nearest thing to an ‘economic miracle’ that we have in or around the EU at the present time:

“It?s time to smell the coffee ? Turkey?s disinflation process is not a temporary phenomenon. Though currency movements play a notable role in driving inflation mechanics of highly dollarised economies, disinflation in Turkey has not been just a by-product of exchange-rate valuation. We believe that it is unfair to take currency appreciation for granted and overlook fundamental factors driving both exchange-rate and inflation dynamics. First, the favourable pass-through effect is a result of fundamental improvements such as a rebalancing of residents? portfolio allocations and productivity-driven export growth. Second, monetary discipline assisted by fiscal consolidation and structural reforms has played a critical part in improving institutional credibility. Third, productivity gains that have resulted in a remarkable drop in unit labour costs help lower the rate of price increases. And last, but not least, economic slack as manifested by the cumulative output gap and labour-market developments has accelerated the pace of disinflation.”

But if this is how things look to some (even if the looking is done not from Turkey but from Serhan’s London window) this is not the way they seem to EU single market commissioner Frits Bolkestein:
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