The European Union is letting down Turkey’s people, opposition politicians and elected mayors by softening its response to repression because of the country’s strategic importance, Belgian member of the European Parliament Kathleen Van Brempt said in an interview published Wednesday by the TR724 news website.
Van Brempt, a vice president of the parliament’s center-left Socialists and Democrats group, criticized the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, and member governments for failing to match parliament’s response to Turkey’s democratic decline.
“We need Turkey geopolitically, so we do not react very strongly,” she told TR724. “But in doing so, we are actually letting down the Turkish opposition, Turkish mayors and also the Turkish people.”
She urged EU institutions to defend human rights and the rule of law in their dealings with Ankara, arguing that Turkey’s strategic importance should not shield its government from criticism.
Her remarks come amid prosecutions targeting opposition politicians and journalists, along with continuing arrests of people accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been jailed pending trial since March 2025 on corruption charges he denies. European lawmakers have called for his release and condemned prosecutions of elected mayors as politically motivated.
Turkey’s relations with the EU have suffered over its record on democracy and rights. In June the parliament reaffirmed that membership negotiations could not resume under existing conditions because the government had failed to remedy shortcomings in democracy.
Asked about the crackdown on people accused of Gülen movement links, Van Brempt warned that groups such as Kurds, Gülen supporters and religious minorities are among the first targets when democratic protections erode.
Protecting their rights is part of defending democracy, she argued, along with ensuring that opposition politicians can organize and journalists can work without interference.
Erdoğan has targeted the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated Erdoğan’s family and inner circle.
His government designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified its crackdown after a coup attempt that July, which Erdoğan accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Van Brempt also urged the EU to go beyond statements supporting press freedom by providing funding to help independent journalism survive.
Democracy ultimately has to be built by Turkey’s people, she stressed, with the opposition’s ability to compete in elections under fair conditions essential to political change.
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