“We could maintain our economic relations but from now on, we may have the need to review ties at the political and administrative level,” Erdogan, 63, said in an interview with CNN-Turk television late Thursday. The president said he’ll use terms like “fascist” or “Nazi” to criticize Europe for as long as “they keep calling me a dictator,” and described as unacceptable some EU members’ defense of the Netherlands after it denied entry to Turkish ministers seeking to campaign ahead of the poll.
According to Bloomberg, he also said Turkey would continue to welcome foreign investors even if it reconsiders its political relations with the bloc.
The diplomatic row with the EU risks damaging Turkey’s long-time bid for membership of the bloc. European officials have voiced their disapproval of the referendum on whether to endow Erdogan’s office with executive power, saying it would undermine democracy in the NATO member.
It has also put pressure on the refugee deal struck a year ago, under which Turkey agreed to help stem the flow of refugees from Syria in exchange for $3 billion in aid, a pledge to “re-energize” Turkey’s stalled membership talks and to secure visa-free travel for Turks in the EU’s 26-nation Schengen area.
Key Referendum
Asked whether Turkey is preparing any radical steps regarding the refugee deal, Erdogan said: “April 16 will determine many things. We will sit down with the government and review all of these A to Z.”
Erdogan’s comments come after the European Commission summoned Turkey’s ambassador to explain the president’s recent remarks. Erdogan said on Wednesday that if the EU doesn’t change its attitude toward Turkey, “no European, Westerner can walk safely in any part of the world,” the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkey “is now clearly increasingly retreating from Europe,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview published on Friday in Luxembourg’s Tageblatt newspaper. “That’s not because the European Union wants this, but it’s the Turkish state leadership.”
“The latest developments in Turkey show that the country isn’t ready to join, unless there’s a radical change of course,” the newspaper cited Juncker as saying.
Failure by the EU and Turkey to overcome the current tensions would amount to an “historic defeat” and damage the country’s interests, Tusiad, the nation’s top business community grouping, said in an emailed statement.