Erdogan's defeat in Turkey's municipal elections yesterday is not expected to have an immediate significant impact on Greek-Turkish relations. Erdogan and his allies won presidential and parliamentary elections a year ago and will remain in power for the next few years.
But the victory of opposition Kemalist candidates in local elections is proof that Turkey remains a deeply divided country.
This proves that the defeat of pro-Western opposition parties last year had no catalytic effect against them in society.
In this light, the need to renew the Air Force fleet is now a priority for the regime to show the Erdoğan regime a friendly attitude towards Greece, the West and other neighbours.
The time frame for normalizing Greek relations with Turkey will be short as the two countries' interests and long-term trajectories of power are in alignment leading to conflict.
Each side must arrange conditions so that the conflicts will take place in a period that is favorable in terms of the interaction of forces and international factors.
Turkey has major advantages over Greece: its population boom, significant difference in GDP, and the industrial and technological infrastructure it has been able to acquire in recent years.
Greece's strength remains: Turkey has become an unstable ally and the West needs to protect it, and its alliances with neighbors such as Israel, Egypt, and especially France, are beginning to present themselves as leverage for a future protectorate. The arm of the European Union.
In favor of Greece, the friction of the Turkish society should be calculated, which could lead to situations that could escalate and become uncontrollable depending on international developments.
The friction is between pro-Western secularists on the coast and major urban centers, radicalized Muslims in the eastern provinces and Kurds in the southeastern provinces.
Under the right circumstances, the further distance of the neighbors from the west would lead to a huge divergence between the three different societies that make up Turkey today. In the long run this situation undermines its ambitions as a regional economic and political superpower.
Turkey, while trying to upgrade its armed forces, continues to suffer from an economic crisis, with inflation estimated at 60%.
The fall in the Turkish lira exchange rate in recent years has evaporated households' purchasing power. Under these conditions last year's election victory of Erdoğan's party and allies highlights the importance of nationalist illusions, which manipulate and exploit the regime.
A potential rise in international food prices could have devastating consequences in a country like Turkey, where a large part of the population is already affected.
In similar cases, historical experience teaches that authoritarian regimes encourage and incite nationalism by creating real or imagined enemies. During similar periods, friction and divisions with neighboring countries will increase dramatically.
The election result shows that Turkey remains a deeply divided country and this has both positive and negative effects on Greece's interests and aspirations.
2) Millennials
Mr. Stupa
Taking a cue from readers' comments regarding the (real) example I gave of my generation's financial choices, I'd like to point out the following:
1. None of the readers who commented on the example seemed to care how expensive a newly built residential property in the northern suburbs of Athens (an area not affected by golden visas or short-term rentals) was 30 years ago. In terms of 5 years wages, the same 30 year old property today costs 20 years wages and what this means for the long term evolution of average income in Greece.
2. In Greece, there has always been an aversion to owning movable financial assets, instead there is a constant preference for immovable assets, even if it is not purely income (main and country house, own land, etc. ) movable assets (deposits, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, investment insurances etc) would be considered “weird”, “weird” to have. So in Greece we own fields and “duaria” (usually with a mortgage) or – if we have some capital – we open a “business”. An example of our economic illiteracy.
3. We had the generation of Millennials born between 1981-1996, the generation of baby boomers (1946-1964) or, to a lesser extent, those born at the end of the so-called peace. Generation (1928-1945). My generation grew up in the “golden age of globalization” and the “destruction” of the postwar economic middle-class dream of “stable and well-paid work.”
In other words, he grew up in a world – politically, economically, scientifically, technologically – that was changing, but what he was taught by his parents was an approach to life and a philosophy that has now passed into the recesses of history.
Millennials were the first generation in modern history to be told somewhere in the late 2010s that “we are the first to live worse than the previous generation.”
Perhaps we “stumbled into crisis,” perhaps because we were a generation that came of age on the brink of structural changes somewhere around the dawn of the millennium, called to respond and cope with a new world indoctrinated with old ideas. .
The example I mentioned is a typical example of recruiters being quite different between generations. On the one hand is a millennial with a typical average salary (we once called them the “generation of 700 euros”) and at the same time with an inheritance of property worth “hundreds of salaries”, sometime in the 90s, bought to stay in his parents' “child”. However, this particular person, when he inherited it and owned it, was faced with the dilemma of what was best for him, living in a house that wasn't clear – all these properties had increased costs of paying bills, utilities, etc. – or lining his bank account with a respectable six-figure sum. Fill up.
As one reader (albeit an accountant/tax expert) commented, I may not be well-versed in finance, but I don't see a convincing counter-argument.
The “stable, well-paid” generations, the “rapid social rehabilitation” generations, the “roof over our heads” generations gave way to the generation of wages of 900 and 1,000 euros and the risky generation.
Obviously financial options also vary…
Thanks
DMK
