President of France Nicholas Sarkozy kind of sabotaged the European Union summit meeting held the week before. He started to discuss with Barosso, President of the European Commission out of nowhere. The subject of the discussion was Sarkozy's decision to expel 700 Romans, who are citizens of EU member Romania and Bulgaria. Nowadays, everyone criticizes Sarkozy. In the meanwhile Sarkozy seems to have given an early start to the campaign for the general MP elections in 2012. In this sense, President Sarkozy is quite similar with Prime Minister Erdogan. They both are good at long term political planning. Let us see what the similarity between them is.

As far as I am concerned, 79 Roman people were repatriated to Romania for now. The politically correct definition is to call them "Romans", but we define them also as "Gypsies" in our daily lives. So, what is the problem here? Let us start here. The problem goes as follows: If citizens of another European Union member country coming to your country fail to find a proper job and a permanent residence, you can expel them. Romans kept at camps until now are being repatriated to Romania in the context of the mentioned regulation. The regulation says, in spite of the free movement right, the incomer must go back to their country if they cannot find a job. However, this regulation is in effect since 2007. Why is it being implemented only now? Because, they are the new target Sarkozy chose. Sarkozy do politics by portraying someone as the target and attacking at. He examines in detail which group he can attract and which arguments he can use to attract them; and then does politics. I guess such is politics, indeed. And this is why Sarkozy is similar with Tayyip Erdogan, Honorable Prime Minister of Turkey. This is the angle I talk about.

Ok, then in which sense this Roman issue important? Let me tell you a memory, if you like. I love telling this one when it comes to Turkey-IMF relations. It is 2007; European Union has recently enlarged towards Romania. For some reason, I am at Brussels almost one month after the enlargement. I sat in a street café and I am drinking a nice Belgian beer. And I suddenly see something which is a first for me in Belgium I have visited several times. Between the tables of the café, a Roman woman with a naked-feet kid on her lap appears. She approaches to tables and asks for money to feed her kid. This is a usual thing for people living in Turkey. But there, it was as if like a fatal problem for the waiters. They were talking to her "Lady, please" to dissuade her, but it was useless. If this had happened in Turkey, waiters would have known what to do; but there they did not have such capacity. I believe this Roman issue of the Europe must be seen within this framework. At least this is what I understand from the reaction and the 'digestion capacity' talks.

So, let me put three short conclusions with respect to this occasion: First, it is good for Turkey that Sarkozy's target at this election campaign is not Turkey but Romans. There, the issue at the target is selected with a purely 'instrumental' manner. It is not that Sarkozy likes or hates Turks, or Romans. The issue of importance is how the action he decides to take affects the voter base of his party. And in my consideration, this is as much of a concern for Erdoğan as for Sarkozy. This is the second point to state. The third one is directly related with the European Union. The discussion between Sarkozy and Barroso once again puts out clearly how weak the Commission is before the member states. That such an incident occurred in a meeting supposedly initiated to strengthen the Commission before member states in the coordination of economic policy and monitoring of fiscal policies is unfortunate to say the least. I believe that after what we have seen, we should no longer be optimistic about the financial crisis across European Union countries. They do not seem to take decisions smoothly.

However, the answer for the question is apparent:

Sarkozy and Erdoğan are quite similar. I think they will get along well when they come together soon in Turkey.

This commentary was published in Referans daily on 23.09.2010