Angela Merkel dismisses 'depressing' Turkish Nazi claims

German chancellor Angela Merkel has stepped up her warning on the future of democracy in Turkey and condemned the “sad and depressing” recent Turkish “Nazi” claims about Germany.

Ahead of April’s constitutional referendum in Turkey, that country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said “Nazi” practices were behind the cancellation of public addresses of his ministers in Germany. His remarks, repeated by ministers and government-friendly media, have aggravated already strained relations between Berlin and Ankara.

Before heading to Brussels for the EU summit, Dr Merkel said such comparisons were unacceptable because they relativised the horrors of the Nazi era, something Germany would never allow. “The comparisons between Germany and national socialism have to stop,” she told the Bundestag. “Given our close contacts – political, social, as Nato partner and economic – they are unworthy.”

The German leader said it wasn’t in the interest of any of Turkey’s partners to see the country drift further away from shared democratic values. Turkish politicians were welcome to speak in Germany, she said, if – as was apparently not the case last week – their appearances were registered properly in advance with the authorities.

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Autocratic state

Earlier, Bundestag president Norbert Lammert attracted enthusiastic applause from all party benches for insisting that Berlin would not be cowed into silence by Ankara. German leaders would continue to warn its three million strong Turkish community where next month’s referendum could lead: into an “increasingly autocratic state”.

The referendum, if passed, would give Mr Erdogan extensive new powers and allow him to serve two more terms after his current one ends in 2019.

In the German-Turkey stand-off, Dr Lammert insisted it was “clear to everyone” which country respected human rights, the rule of law, separation of powers and freedom of the press and opinion.

“Because these principles are not up for discussion, we ask people in Germany for understanding that . . . we don’t refuse them to others,” he said. “But we expect from every other foreign government . . . that the rights that their representatives take advantage of with us are extended in the same way to their own citizens at home.”

Asked about remarks in the Bundestag debate, Turkish prime minister Binali Yildirim accused Germany of taking sides and “meddling” in the April referendum, but he did not repeat the Nazi comparison.

Enhanced co-operation

With an eye on the EU summit, Dr Merkel renewed her call for willing member states to proceed with inclusive – not exclusive – enhanced co-operation on areas of common interest, in particular military partnership.

“Europe’s entire history is filled with examples of such a Europe of various speeds,” she said, pointing to the euro and Schengen free travel area.

Ahead of the re-election of European Council president Donald Tusk for a second term, despite vehement opposition from political rivals in his native Poland, she said: “I see his re-election as a sign of stability in the entire European Union and look forward to continuing that co-operation.”

She also dismissed indirectly Polish calls for a post-Brexit EU to return more competences to member state capitals. Europe would be better served at this time, Dr Merkel insisted, by “concentration on issues for which action at European level is more suitable than action at national and regional level”.

Amid reports on Thursday that Warsaw would collapse the summit if Mr Tusk was re-elected, Dr Merkel’s Social Democratic (SPD) junior coalition partners described such threats as “embarrassing”.

With an eye on September’s federal election, Germany’s opposition Green and Left Parties used Thursday’s parliamentary debate to bemoan what they saw as Ms Merkel’s chronic lack of vision for Europe.

Cem Özdemir, Green Party co-leader, said failure to lead had left politicians less open to attack over the direction of the EU, but created a political vacuum.

“This vacuum will always be filled – if not by democrats then populists,” he said. “But I don’t want that populists tell us how things continue with Europe.”