 Welcome to the Institute for International and European Affairs here in Dublin and a very special welcome to our guest speaker today, Mehmet Uwucu. Today's webinar is on fascinating topic, post-election Turkey, the implications for Europe. And some of you may recall that the Economist magazine this year described at what was then the forthcoming elections as the most important in 2023. Our formal presentation will last about 20 minutes and this will be followed by a discussion which you the audience can join by using the Q&A function on your screen. Feel free to send in questions or comments during the opening statement and we will come to them later. We ask that you give your name and any relevant organizations of which you are affiliated when putting a question or comment. Both the keynote statement and the Q&A are on the record and feel free to join the discussion on Twitter with a handle at IEEA. Now it's a great pleasure to formally introduce Mehmet Uwucu who currently chairs the Global Resources Partnership, a London based strategic investment advisory group in the natural resources and energy sectors. Earlier in a distinguished and varied career, Mehmet worked as an advisor to the then Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Uzal. He also held a number of important postings in the Turkish Foreign Service. As well as working in the OECD and the International Energy Agency Secretariat, he has extensive experience of the private sector, most notably in the energy field. Mehmet, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. It's really a privilege to be joining you today at IEEA and I'd like to share some of the thoughts that I have about how the post-election Turkey would be interacting with Europe and also in the wider region including Middle East, Russia, China and Central Asia, as well as East Med. More importantly, of course, we have to look at how Turkish relations with the European Union really work. Because, as you said, the elections we had on 14 and 28 May first tour and the second round were critical and the most important election in 2023, as the economy also put it, because it wasn't going to affect Turkish domestic politics only. It's a game changer in many respects, but it also has significant implications for the region surrounding Turkey. And if you look at Turkey's relations with Middle East, Gulf nations, Eurasia, East Med, even down to Black Africa and Latin America, Turkey has made great inroads in these regions. It's a positive force to reckon with or as a disruptor, so it depends on from which angle we look at it. And of course, in the European Union and most of the liberal parts of the Turkish society, there was a strong conviction that Erdogan came to the end of his political career. And I thought that it will be an overwhelming majority by the opposition leaders. So things were going to change in a significant way. And Erdogan won the election at the second round by a small margin though. There were some of course concerns whether irregularity because it wasn't a fair election in terms of opposition having the airtime in TV, radios, media, and also lots of obstructions legal and practical administrative obstructions on the way to opposition. And still many people consider that opposition having around 48%, almost half of the population against Erdogan is a gain. However, the reality is that now the president Erdogan will be running if his health allows for the next five years. And then we have the local election coming on the 31st of March, eight and a half months from now worse. And opposition is in disarray, demoralized, because they couldn't achieve what they were hoping to have. And therefore there are so much divisions now within the opposition. This table of six already disintegrated. So there was a single united opposition front against Erdogan. No longer we can talk of that, whether they will collaborate again during the local elections. And it is still doubtful. Leadership have not changed yet of CHP or good party or other opposition groups because clearly they were defeated, no matter whether it was by a small margin or not. And now I think opposition is between among themselves without any due respect to the elections local elections coming. And Erdogan's first statement was I will get back Istanbul and Ankara, because without Istanbul and Ankara Erdogan doesn't feel comfortable. And so we also discuss among ourselves whether there will be any change in Erdogan's policies, domestic, economic or foreign policy approaches the way Erdogan appealed and applied all along. And what we think is that economy is in deep recession. There are serious problems, cash problems, the treasury central bank reserves are depleted, even to the minus $70 billion. And therefore, we think that it is not sustainable the way he run the Turkish economy up to now interest rates were so low inflation high, you know about Central Bank base rate was about 8.5%. The inflation were around 80%. So Erdogan was claiming to follow an unorthodox economic policy which created serious difficulties for individuals who lost their savings, as well as the companies who borrowed heavily from abroad. And now there is a new team. And when you look at the composition of Erdogan's cabinet in the post election period. It is quite respected, including myself, I find it quite pragmatic and well chosen people on the base of their merits. The economy czar is Mehmet Shimshek who came from UK from London. He was a former economy minister he was called back because he's well respected in international markets, and central bank governor a lady who came from the United States. And then now Erdogan had to accept gradually that interest rates should go up, inflation should be kept under control, and central bank shouldn't sell all the currencies they have in order to control the dollar, euro and pounds in the country. So when you look at it from the EU perspective, I was in Palermo, and one of my colleagues from French Strategic Institute, he told me that we were really scared that opposition candidate might win. Because if he wins, we have to revise our policy vis-à-vis Turkey. So we have to welcome the new opposition leader, and that means revitalization of Turkish EU relations. I don't know whether this is a feeling widely held in EU circles, but from the EU perspective, Turkey is right now a power, disrupting the neighborhood security policy issues and quite a ambitious, aspiring nation, upsetting all the well established balances and status quo. And also Turkey is the gateway for millions of refugees coming from Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and you name it. And also, I mean the human rights violations, democratic gaps, credentials, and they were all seen as a result to perhaps reduce the level of EU engagement with Turkey, limiting it only to transactions, vital transactions. And in East Med, of course, and Cyprus, the problems are still going on. And EU had to take sides in Cyprus and East Med because South Cyprus and Greece are members, and Turkey is not. Turkish membership in the EU is a long saga, more than half a century. And it hasn't happened. There are I think blames that can be put on Ankara and Brussels equally. But right now, what we see is that the accession talks started in 2004, official negotiations stopped. It's not going anywhere since 2018. And again, on the account of democracy deficit in Turkey and also Turkish action with every Cyprus, Greece, East Med. And therefore, there is no trust on both sides. And the EU's interest is focusing only on the refugee issues, give Turkey more money so that they can stop the flow of refugees to Europe, but the price Turkey had to pay was almost 13 million refugees. Migrants coming and staying in Turkey in a population of 85 million. This is a huge burden. The EU that just pay a couple of billions of euros, perhaps, Turkey could be satisfied, but this created a huge problem in Turkey, as it did for some of the European countries, including Greece, I think. And, but the relationship are now focused only on areas where EU has vital interest. And EU investments to Turkey slow down significantly. FDI is almost at the level of nil zero. And to the contrary, Turkish capital is outflowing to European financial markets and also Greenfield opportunities that they can find. So it's an unbalanced relationship. And this is not sustainable, of course, because we also have the customs union. And then there was a suggestion from the EU site under the positive agenda with Turkey. Perhaps customs union could be modernized to make sure that agriculture and services could be included in the customs union. Then freedom of movement, of course, because EU has provided visa free access to many nations who didn't even be around with EU, whereas Turkey with a commitment to relationship more than 50 years with ups and downs were not given this right so there was fear that there will be a lower people from Turkey to EU markets. So I think the mutual distrust is in place. There are many efforts to revive this relationship, but the accession pull accession is no longer on the table. I mean, it's there, but the fact that nobody's talking about it. Even in Turkey, they say, without joining EU, if there's a referendum, there will be a trick exit, rather than like the Brexit, and Turks wouldn't like to join EU, because they see EU, perhaps it's rhetorical, but a group of nations which lost competitiveness, aging, and also have little say in the global affairs also, although it's a huge economy, but in terms of impact in the global system, EU is not performing well, and it's not a power to be envy of this is what the Turkish populist rhetoric is. And instead, if you don't want to work with me if you limit your engagement to only critical transactions like refugee issues, energy climate change, then of course we will look for other opportunities they say, and Russia comes into the picture in that context, because they're going to put in somehow personal chemistry, and then some sort of relationship, even we don't understand how it works, because it doesn't look like it is from state to state, it's more personal, the, you know, the grain deal, then energy wise, first Turkey depends heavily on Russia and we haven't in Turkey adopted the sanctions that EU and US pushed for, and because Turkey itself is under some sort of sanctions, and China is also trying to court Turkey, and my concern is that if Turkey is excluded from the European Union as a measure power, it's also already part of the OECD and NATO, the second largest army within NATO, there is a risk that Turkey could be moving towards Russia and China, if there is going to be a new cleavage in the international system, not the Cold War, as we have seen before 1990s, but this kind of a new cleavage between Russia, China, and their allies and the west on the other side, where Turkey will sit, because Turkey always wanted to play a balancing role in the geography where it's located, because Turkey is the only power now able to speak to Putin, Xi Jinping, and Biden and the European leaders and Middle Eastern and Gulf leaders as well. And therefore there is a need for a country perhaps to play a bridging role where it works, or we exaggerate it. And so one has to look how realistic it is, but current picture shows that, Turkey needs Europe of course for economical reasons. Also there are about 5 million Turks living in European Union territory, and that's the size of a country almost. There are Cyprus, Malta and other Luxembourg. Therefore, I think there is a need for a win-win partnership. We shouldn't perhaps poison the relationship on insisting on accession, which is not going to take place soon. Perhaps it's a matter for the next generation. So we should perhaps put this aside and focus on where both sides could work together on the base of equality, and also mutual benefit. And Turkish relations with Russia will not change for the foreseeable future. Of course it depends on who will sit in Moscow, whether Putin will survive the crisis that we are going through. There was a little hope in certain capitals that the Wagner uprising could perhaps destabilize Moscow somehow, but I think it has been sort of a result for the time being. And China of course is very careful, and through Belt and Road Initiative, it made huge gains and inroads in Central Asia, in Southeast Europe as well, and in Africa, in Middle East, and the Saudi energy interest tied more and more with Beijing, rather than US or European Union countries. So the energy flows will be changing. As a result of sanctions on Russia for natural gas and price ceilings caps for oil and oil products, now more and more oil is flowing from Russia to China and India. Likewise, Saudis are selling more and more to the Asia Pacific nations, and LNG going from Qatar, Tanzania, Australia, more and more towards China, India, Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan, rather than to Europe, Europe is not willing to pay long term for long term contract, they prefer short term needs, and European energy architectures, prior architectures significantly change. There might be need for Turkey to step in there as well because Turkish energy security is so much linked to Russia, but also to the European Union, and Turkey could be a gateway for energy flows. Not only for oil, natural gas, but also in the renewables because Turkey now has in terms of power capacity, 54% of Turkish energy electricity comes from renewables and green hydrogen and you name it climate change wise. There are lots of areas to work together. So, looking at these pictures, not looking so positive, I think there is need for an effort from Brussels and EU capitals to decide what to do with Turkey. It cannot continue business as usual, because Turkey now is a power to reckon with. The largest regional power from China to Germany, from Russia to Saudi Arabia is a huge geographical space in which Turkey economically, politically, militarily play a key role. The EU, of course, may continue its current policy but down the road couple of years later, then the question will be asked, who lost Turkey. I think one has to be prepared for such scenarios, ship dialogue, short of accession, but win-win rather than only serving the EU interest. I think there is a risk that Turkey might be tilting towards other powers, global powers in the new international order that is emerging. And so I think the question that you posed for this session is a very meaningful one. I think we have to deal with the implications of post-election Turkey and we have to take a very strategic and long-term view on Turkey, rather than focusing on, of course, difficulties, deficiencies that Turkey has. Let me stop here. Perhaps we might have provocative questions that can help me to be more provocative as well.