Macron says Erdogan's policy is incompatible with the European interest

The French President, Emmanuel Macron, considers that the expansionist policy of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey is incompatible with European interests and constitutes a destabilising factor that must be confronted, without escalation.

Macron, in a statement published this Thursday by Paris Match magazine, explains that he has reached this conclusion after being open with the Turkish president, since he has been "one of the rare European leaders" who has received him in recent years, in January 2018, a fact that "many (were) reproached".

Not only did he invite him then to Paris, but he went to see him in September of that year in Istanbul and also launched the initiative for a summit of the Europeans with Turkey in London in December 2019.

But from all this, the lesson he has drawn is that "his power politics is an expansionist policy that mixes nationalism and Islamism, which is not compatible with European interests. It is a destabilising factor. Europe must look at the facts head on and assume it". He points out that he is not in favour of an escalation, but neither does he believe in "impotent diplomacy".

Therefore, in a reference to his decision last week to send military reinforcements to the eastern Mediterranean in support of Greece in the face of tensions with Turkey over hydrocarbon prospecting, Macron states that "we have sent the signal that European solidarity made sense".

Two Rafale fighters and two warships went to that area following the request made by the Greek Government to its EU partners in the face of the crisis with Turkey over prospecting in waters whose sovereignty is questioned by both parties.