A leading German Sunday newspaper reports that Turkey is refusing to accredit a European Union diplomat the EU wants to post to Ankara as its military attaché, a further sign that the Greco-Turkish Mediterranean crisis is seriously straining relations between the EU and Turkey.

The EU considers the posting necessary because of Turkey’s growing security importance. Ankara counters that given the current tensions and sanction threats by several EU countries an accreditation is “inappropriate” and would clash with “widespread incomprehension on the part of the Turkish population”. No solution is currently in sight.

Relations between Ankara and Brussels, the seat of the EU, are also taut because of constant human rights violations by Turkey.
The EU also critisises that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could trigger a new refugee crisis by smuggling dangerous weapons to Libya, thereby fueling the civil war there.

Moreover, Brussels sees Turkey escalating the Greco-Turkish conflict in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has announced an imminent “Mediterranean storm” of military exercises off Cyprus.

Since rich gas deposits were discovered in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean the two states have been in hot dispute over who is allowed to mine them, both NATO member countries and neighbours claiming the area as theirs. Both sides have sent warships there. France has deployed war planes.

With the dispute becoming hotter by the week, now is the time for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, currently in the rotating chair of the EU, to intervene, before it is too late, urges Germany’s highly influential weekly news magazine, Der Spiegel. Ms Merkel has been talking with both sides recently.

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The Greek foreign minister has called Turkey a “troublemaker” and “a destabilising factor in the region”. President Erdogan shot back: “If anyone wants to pay the price for it, they’re welcome to take us on.” Earlier he called Greece and its European backers “greedy for money” and “incompetent”.

Germany has to tiptoe on eggshells in regard to Turkey, in particular Mr. Erdoğan, the most powerful Turkish head of state since the secular founder of the republic, Kemal Ataturk. He has threatened several times to let some of the four million refugees held in Turkish camps move on to northern Europe.

Out of 10 million foreigners in Germany, 1.5 million are Turks, compared with almost 364,000 Greeks living here.

Turkish law allows Turkish citizens to vote in elections and referendums anywhere abroad if the host country permits, which the German government has done, despite Nazi comparisons and verbal attacks from Ankara. It caused a lot of anger and boosted right-wing politicians.

The lively participation by expatriate Turks in the referendum, which has made Erdogan so powerful, fired up tensions between Turks here who abhor Erdogan and those who admire him, some calling him “my president”.

A large proportion of the Turk diaspora has not integrated well here, whereas the Greeks have and continue to come in.

Despite the political tension, another fraught area where Germany has to tread lightly is trade. In both import and export Turkey is important to the German economy and two-way business flourishes.

Although exports are declining, Germany is Turkey’s third-largest supplier. Sales to Turkey dropped 12 per cent last year, purchases from it increased by 2 per cent. Germany is Turkey’s biggest customer worldwide. Main items traded are textiles and clothing, motor vehicles and parts, machinery and chemicals. Exports have been dropping for the past three years. Turkish inflation is high and purchasing power has shrunk palpably.

READ MORE: Turkey extends an olive branch to Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean as long as there are no “preconditions”

The weakness of the Turkish lira makes imports more expensive. Ankara is trying to decrease the chronic trade deficit by lowering imports.
Complaints by German exporters about protectionist measures are increasing and they see one reason for this in attempts to protect Turkish producers.

Particularly relevant to the tension in the Med is the co-production between the two states of six submarines.

Some see President Erdogan with his back to the wall and taking action in the Mediterranean to cast himself as national saviour.

As the fronts continue to harden, Greece has knocked back an offer by NATO (of which, along with Turkey, it is a member) to mediate. Germany is trying to take that role.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said, “stop the provocations, start the talks” but Greece wants all Turkish warships withdrawn before coming to the table. Erdogan says no preconditions. However, a NATO spokeswoman has revealed that last Thursday a “technical meeting” between delegates of both sides took place in the NATO headquarters.

France, which strongly backs Greece, and Turkey have reached a new ice age, a German newspaper commentator wrote. The daily Die Welt said the relationship is always cool, but now there’s “extreme frost” between Erdogan and President Emmanuel Macron.

The French oil company Total is also interested in the Mediterranean undersea riches. French fighter-bombers and warships have been sent into the disputed area now being prospected by the Turks.

The two governments are arguing over things of yesteryear, such as the genocide of Armenians and whether it’s even permissible to call it that. They’re at each other over current matters like Turkey’s involvement in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars. And that the Turks took advantage of the departure of the Americans last October to start a military offensive against the Kurds in north Syria is not forgotten, either.

“And that they’re playing with fire in the eastern Mediterranean at the EU’s front door gets mightily on French nerves. What began as harsh verbal attacks and pinpointed insults has morphed into military muscle play,” writes the daily.

“Almost every Mediterranean litoral state can hope for plentiful income from the energy business, only one can’t: Turkey. Nothing has been found off its coast. But it doesn’t want to end up empty-handed,” writes a commentator for the online news provider HEAD TOPICS Deutschland.

“Even Germany’s borders are contentious. Only, we’ve got peaceful neighbours.”

Written by a Neos Kosmos reader in Germany.