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The Turkish diaspora wields considerable power in Europe, Turkey’s Permanent Delegate to the European Union Faruk Kaymakçı told the state-run Anadolu news agency on Thursday, emphasizing his belief that they can change their future through voting in the European Parliament (EP) elections.
With about a week remaining until the elections, Kaymakçı called on the Turkish community to exercise their political rights and vote.
“Based on population, the Turkish community can influence the outcome of elections in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden. It is important that representatives of the Turkish community exercise their right to elect and be elected, to protect their rights, preserve their integration to their host countries and for a peaceful, prosperous EU,” Kaymakçı told Anadolu on Thursday.
Around 360 million people in 27 countries will be eligible to vote in the European elections next week. Votes for members of the European Parliament will be cast across the European Union from June 6 to 9, but vary from country to country.
The Dutch will start on Thursday, June 6. They will be followed by Ireland on June 7 and Latvia, Malta and Slovakia the next day. The Czech Republic and Italy will vote on two days: June 7-8 and June 8-9, rspectively. In the rest of the EU, the elections will take place on Sunday, June 9.
A total of 720 members of the European Parliament will be elected from thousands of candidates.
This is fewer MEPs than in the last election, partly because the parliament has shrunk due to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU in 2020.
The Turkish diaspora is spread across all European countries and, with over 3 million people in Germany alone.
Kaymakçı said the Turkish community should accept the fact that others would decide their future if they abstained from voting. “They should also bear in mind that Türkiye is a candidate country for EU accession,” he was quoted as saying.
A report by the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper in January about the establishment of a party named Democratic Alliance for Diversity and Awakening (DAVA), close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, that will run in the European Parliament elections has led to alarm in the country, with many interpreting it as an attempt by Erdoğan to expand his influence on the Turkish population there.
Some German politicians have expressed concerns that the new party will further stoke divisions in the country among various religious and ethnic groups and will be another radical party just like the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. They said the new party will also increase Erdoğan’s influence over the Turkish population there and promote his agenda.
DAVA Chairman and co-founder Teyfik Özcan and Fatih Zingal, another co-founder and deputy chairman of DAVA, told BBC Turkish at the time that the new party would not only appeal to people with Turkish roots in Germany but to all religious and ethnic minorities who feel under-represented in German politics while denying claims about any links to Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
DAVA officials have rejected claims that the party is funded by the Turkish government.
Despite the efforts of DAVA executives to distance themselves from Erdoğan and the AKP, they do not avoid publicly supporting the Turkish president.
For instance, DAVA Deputy Chairman Fatih Zingar posted a tweet on X about a meeting between Erdoğan and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during Erdoğan’s visit to Berlin in November, describing Erdoğan as “very confident, direct, expressing his demands and stance on Gaza and Israel very pointedly without holding back,” while he described Scholz as “rather hesitant, reading from text, avoiding conflicts and not speaking ‘plainly’ as required.”