The president of PASOK<\/b> is attempting to take credit for the European condemnation of Turkey<\/b>, while the government continues to internationalize Turkish provocations<\/b>.<\/p>\n
The escalating Turkish provocations<\/b>, Ankara\u2019s insistence on the revisionist \u201cBlue Homeland\u201d doctrine<\/b> and the need for ongoing European support for Greece and Cyprus<\/b> are critical issues of national strategy<\/b>. In this context, any European decision condemning Turkish claims<\/b> takes on particular significance<\/b>. However, foreign policy is not suited for petty partisan exploitation <\/b>nor for public relations exercises aimed at claiming credit for national successes<\/b>. And this is where the problem begins for Nikos Androulakis<\/b>, who, from Brussels, attempted to present himself almost as the political architect of Europe\u2019s condemnation of Turkey<\/b>, as if the battle against the Turkish provocations had begun the day before yesterday<\/b> and not as a result of a long and systematic diplomatic effort by the country<\/b>.<\/p>\n
The PASOK president, participating in the Summit of Socialists and Democrats<\/b>, argued that the condemnation of Turkey<\/b> by the European Parliament for the legislative enshrinement of the \u201cBlue Homeland\u201d<\/b> came about following an initiative by PASOK and the European Socialists<\/b>. At the same time, he called on Kyriakos Mitsotakis to seek a similar reference in the conclusions of the European Council<\/b>, emphasizing that European solidarity cannot be selective<\/b>. Mr. Androulakis also referred to the negotiations<\/b> on the European budget<\/b>, calling for no cuts to the Cohesion Funds<\/b> and the Common Agricultural Policy<\/b>.<\/p>\n
This statement could be considered entirely legitimate<\/b>, if it were not accompanied by an attempt to present a national success<\/b> as a partisan achievement<\/b>. Because when we talk about dealing with Turkey<\/b>, the goal is to strengthen the national line<\/b> and not to score political points in Brussels<\/b>.<\/p>\nWhen PASOK discovers successes, they have usually already happened
<\/h3>\n
There is a constant in Nikos Androulakis\u2019s remarks. When a positive development for the country arises, his first reaction is not to explain how it can be further strengthened. It is to look for a way to prove that PASOK played a decisive role in it. In much the same way, the European Parliament\u2019s condemnation of Turkey was presented almost as the result of a party-led initiative rather than as a continuation of the overall European pressure exerted in recent years against itsArmenian provocations.<\/p>\n
The irony is that Mr. Androulakis is calling on the prime minister to achieve at the European Council what has already been a consistent goal of Greek diplomacy in every European forum. It\u2019s as if the government woke up yesterday and only found out today that there\u2019s an issue with the \u201cBlue Homeland.\u201d It\u2019s as if the constant interventions, international alliances, and systematic exposure of Turkish violations are a matter that began only after the announcement by Harilaos Trikoupis.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem, however, lies elsewhere. The PASOK president seems to approach even national issues through the lens of opposition politics. Instead of highlighting the significance of Europe\u2019s condemnation of Turkey as a victory for the country, he chose to stage yet another scene of political rivalry with himself as the protagonist. And just like that, an issue that could have fostered national unity in the face of Turkish revisionism turned into yet another attempt by PASOK to convince the public that it is at the center of current events. The problem is that the more it tries to prove this, the more it gives the impression that it is chasing a role that current events do not recognize for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The PASOK president is attempting to take credit for Europe\u2019s condemnation of Turkey, while the government continues to internationalize Turkey\u2019s provocations. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}