Former German government double-crossed Türkiye on Europe bid: report

Declassified files have revealed that former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s coalition government deceived Türkiye about Berlin’s pledge to support the country’s European Union membership bid.

German weekly Der Spiegel on Friday published excerpts from the Foreign Ministry’s archive, which showed significant details about the Kohl government’s policy towards Türkiye in the early 1990s.

According to a document dated July 13, 1992, then German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel told his Turkish counterpart Hikmet Cetin during a visit to Ankara that Germany would support Türkiye’s full membership to the EU, what was then called the European Community (EC).

Kinkel tried to assure his Turkish counterpart that the impression that Western Europeans do not want Türkiye in the European club was wrong, and he stressed that Berlin would support Ankara in its goal to become a full member of the EC, according to a declassified report.

But only three days later, former Chancellor Kohl told Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland during a visit to Oslo that his government was under massive pressure from Türkiye for full membership, but the conservative politician stressed that he was against it, and said: “Türkiye cannot become a member” of the European club.

Also on November 5, 1992, the ex-German chancellor told the then Polish Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka that Türkiye’s full membership to the European Community was "inconceivable" from a German perspective, according to declassified files.

Kohl was Germany's longest-serving chancellor, and led the country for 16 years, from 1982 to 1998. His Conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, had long opposed full membership perspective, but favoured “special relations” between the EU and Türkiye.

Ankara applied for membership in 1987 and European leaders agreed in 1999 that Türkiye is eligible to join the European Union.

Ankara’s EU accession negotiations started in 2005, but entered into a stalemate after 2007 due to the Cyprus issue and opposition by several member states to Türkiye’s full membership.

Despite recent pledges by European leaders to revive dialogue and cooperation with Tükiye, accession negotiations remain stalled because of political disagreements.