Brussels Playbook: Turkey on edge — Life of an astronaut — Mariya Gabriel’s Coke runs

May 15, 2023 admin-dominor

MORNING ALL. It’s Josh Posaner here, writing to you from Berlin just after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s flying visit to the German capital. He came in on a Luftwaffe jet from Rome but was already in Paris by late night Sunday for talks with President Emmanuel Macron (who pledged that France “will train and equip” several Ukrainian battalions and provide them with “tens of armored vehicles and light tanks,” with more announcements expected today).

The big question still being debated across Europe is this: With fresh weapon commitments from its Western allies, has Ukraine’s military counteroffensive now begun? “With each visit,” Zelenskyy tweeted from Paris, “Ukraine’s defense and offensive capabilities are expanding.”

WORD OF WARNING to music fans before we crack on with today’s bumper Playbook: The only reference to Eurovision in today’s edition is this one.

DRIVING THE DAY: TURKEY VOTES

ELECTION ON A KNIGE EDGE: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan looks set to face his challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the joint candidate of the Nation Alliance, in a runoff election later this month. With 98.74 percent of the vote from Sunday’s election logged, Erdoğan stands at 49.35 percent with Kılıçdaroğlu at 45 percent.

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Now what? If neither candidate gets over the line to 50 percent of the vote in the first round, a runoff will be held Sunday, May 28. Overseas voting for the millions of Turks living abroad (including 1.5 million in Germany), will take place from May 20 to 24.

Upbeat: A singing, grinning Erdoğan told supporters overnight that he was ready to fight a second round, sensing he had the momentum to beat Kılıçdaroğlu, who undershot expectations, report POLITICO’s Christian Oliver and Elçin Poyrazlar, who are on the ground in Turkey. Keep an eye on our Turkish election hub throughout today for full coverage.

WHAT THE TURKISH ELECTION REALLY MEANS: While Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu look set to slug it out again later this month, Turks also elected a new parliament Sunday.

Energy election: Turkey is a serious energy player. To get a sense of what’s at stake, my colleague Gabriel Gavin spoke to Aura Săbăduș, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis who covers Turkish energy for market intelligence firm ICIS.

Changing plans: A Kılıçdaroğlu victory “would mean a return to more fiscal discipline and, possibly, reforms in the energy sector,” Săbăduș said. “It is unclear who will get the energy portfolio in a new administration but the presence in the [Nation] Alliance of trusted reformers such as Ali Babacan, formerly economy minister and chief negotiator for the EU, may signal some level of alignment with Brussels’ transparency and free market rules.”

Power struggle: The extent to which a new government would enact reform will depend on its relations with its largest gas supplier Russia, who will get the energy portfolio — and how bold the new administration will be in cracking down on the network of patronage established by Erdoğan and involving energy companies with religious and political affiliations to the ruling elite, Săbăduș added.

COPENHAGEN SECURITY CHAT

DANISH DELIGHTS: The annual Copenhagen Democracy Summit kicks off today in the Danish capital, with a line-up of big-name speakers including Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and former British Prime Minister Liz Truss. There will be a strong U.S. element too, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice participating remotely.

There’s also a combo you don’t get that often: One former NATO chief (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) interviewing the current boss of the alliance (Jens Stoltenberg).

RASMUSSEN INTERVIEW: Speaking to Playbook ahead of the two-day summit, Rasmussen said he sees an emerging dynamic within the world between democracies and autocracies. “I foresee a new world order with two dominant camps — a democratic camp led by the U.S. and an autocratic camp led by China. Obviously in between you have both autocracies and democracies that are situated in a gray zone,” he told Suzanne Lynch.

Case in point: “India is a democracy, but has links with Russia — receiving energy and weapons now for example. But on the other hand they are in a confrontation with China, and a security cooperation with the U.S. through the Quad format,” Rasmussen said. “So India is an example of a country which is currently in a gray zone and where we should invest in — firmly anchoring India in the democratic camp.”

UKRAINE IN FOCUS: Expect a strong focus on the war during the summit, with a seven-point “Ukraine charter” set to be unveiled, based on collaboration between Rasmussen and Andrii Yermak, head of Zelenskyy’s office. “It’s very much inspired by the Atlantic Charter from August 1941,” said Rasmussen, referring to the wartime declaration agreed by America’s Franklin D. Roosevelt and Britain’s Winston Churchill.

Among its recommendations: Restoring full territorial integrity for Ukraine (including Crimea) and sustained and open-ended military support for Kyiv.

While we’re on the subject: Listen back to my interview with the former Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe Ben Hodges on POLITICO’s EU Confidential podcast on why Crimea is key to any resolution of the war.

NOW READ THIS 1: In an opinion piece for POLITICO, Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, writes that the conflict cannot end until Ukraine is part of the West.

NOW READ THIS 2: POLITICO’s Mimi Preussen has the inside story of how Zelenskyy got Luke Skywalker and Bear Grylls to fight Russia.

G7 EYES NEW RUSSIA SANCTIONS: Our energy colleagues report that G7 leaders will aim to target Russian energy with sanctions as they meet in Japan this week.

THE LIFE OF A EURONAUT

HOW TO BE AN ASTRONAUT: The five cadets recently selected as the next generation of Europe’s space explorers are just over a month into their year-long basic training. I spent a day at the European Astronaut Center just outside Cologne to see how it’s all going.

Setting the scene: The training hub is wrapped inside a research and military complex just south of the city airport, and while the newbies are bedding in, it’s also still the headquarters for the standing corps, all of whom have flown to the International Space Station at least once.

The facility is based around a huge central hall with mock modules from various global space agencies to drill inside. There’s a 10-meter-deep neutral buoyancy training pool too (just clear of a nasty fungal outbreak, I’m told), along with offices and a gym. If we’re being honest, it has more the vibe of a well-kept high-school than a sci-fi film, but along with Star City in Moscow and the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, it’s one of the key global training centers for astronauts.

The first thing to know about the first year: It’s basically impossible to fail, says Rüdiger Seine, the head of training at the EAC. After getting through a hiring process that whittled down 22,000 applicants to the five career astronauts and a larger reserve group, plus one para-astronaut, nobody is expected to fall short. “We repeat it until they know it,” said Seine of the program. “The emphasis is that if the candidate fails, it’s the instructors’ fault.”

Living the dream: Brit Rosemary Coogan says so far, so good. “If you’d have asked me when I was a child, I would have said I wanted to be an astronaut,” the astrophysics researcher told me. “But there were many years it was difficult to imagine myself in that role. It felt like a fantasy.”

Mission date: The hard deadline for finishing all the training — which includes physical, theoretical and practical challenges, including multiple fully suited-up dips in the pool to simulate a space walk — is May 31. After that, at least one astronaut will get a mission plan. All five are meant to fly by 2030, while those not immediately assigned to a mission get an earthbound project to crack on with.

Doing it for real? The big question now for all the experienced astronauts, such as Germany’s Matthias Maurer, is if and when Europe gets a seat on NASA’s Artemis moon landing mission, who gets to go? Emmanuel Macron wants his guy, Thomas Pesquet, on board. Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti is definitely up for it too. Maurer and his German compatriot colleague Alexander Gerst are keen too. “It’s an obvious yes,” Gerst told me out in the training hall. “If we would say no to that we would be in the wrong job.”

**On May 31, POLITICO will host the spotlight event “How can Europe go from budgetary Wild West to a new fiscal order?”. This spotlight discussion will start with an exclusive interview with Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Vincent Van Peteghem and will be followed by a panel discussion with Science Po Professor Philippe Martin, MEP Margarida Marques and Former Director, DG ECFIN and Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Bruegel, Lucio Pench. Register today**

BRUSSELS TO BULGARIA

GABRIEL GOES HOME: The European Commission’s top official for research and innovation policy Mariya Gabriel has headed for Bulgaria in a rush to establish a coalition government that could see her soon take charge as the country’s prime minister. As she enters a crucial week of negotiations in Sofia, my colleagues Antoaneta Roussi and Laurens Cerulus took a look at Gabriel’s track record in Brussels — the town that made her.

Berlaymont’s open secret: Gabriel pushes her staff hard. In interviews with former staffers and Commission officials who worked directly with her, who requested anonymity to speak freely, a picture emerged of a commissioner who put extraordinary loads on those who worked for her, and asked them to take care of personal matters unrelated to the job. (One former assistant said she would regularly ask staff to run out to buy her Coca-Cola and cigarettes.)

The result: Gabriel has lost 19 staffers, roughly the number of an entire Commission cabinet, since the start of the mandate in 2019.

‘Like a party soldier’ is how a former European commissioner who worked with her described Gabriel’s attachment to her political grouping, the European People’s Party. Gabriel is also close to the party line of her Bulgarian political party GERB and its leader Boyko Borissov — despite critics accusing him of running the country like a mafia state.

On style: “She has to know everything and she doesn’t trust anyone. She wants to be in cc on every email,” said a former staffer.

Gabriel’s rebuttal: A spokesperson for Gabriel said she was “in charge of an important and complex portfolio. And she has a successful track-record in this and the previous Commission mandate.” A GERB spokesperson said Gabriel “has an impeccable authority and biography both in Sofia and in Brussels.”

IN OTHER NEWS

CHINA’S MAN IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA: China’s special representative on Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, begins a visit to Ukraine, Russia and several European countries today, as part of Beijing’s bid to act as a middleman in the war. Details here.

TRADE TUESDAY: When European Commission officials and senior Indian ministers meet on Tuesday for their first-ever trade and technology summit, both sides will be eager to show how two of the world’s largest democracies are working together. More in this curtain-raiser by my colleagues Mark Scott and Barbara Moens.

POLISH PORK BARRELLING: Poland will increase monthly benefits to 800 zlotys (around €177) per child from 500 zlotys (around €110) from next year, the leader of the governing Law and Justice Party, Jarosław Kaczyński, announced over the weekend. Reuters has more here.

SEND THE EXPERTS IN: The European Parliament is pushing the Commission to send appropriate members of the College to present legislation to MEPs, in response to the practice of random commissioners presenting legislation in the chamber, often just reading out a pre-written statement. After Playbook reported last week that Dutch center-right lawmaker Jeroen Lenaers had hit back at the practice, Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola raised the issue with her Commission counterpart Ursula von der Leyen, my colleague Gregorio Sorgi reports. MEPs’ concerns were also raised during a meeting of the Parliament’s Conference of Presidents last Thursday.

SERBIA COULD BE HEADED FOR ANOTHER ELECTION: Voters in Serbia could be headed to the polls for the third time in just four years, as President Aleksandr Vučić suggested a snap general election may be called in the wake of major public protests over two mass shootings. More here.

Against that backdrop: The Balkan Free Media Initiative, Independent Journalists Association of Serbia and International Press Institute are calling on European institutions to make it clear that Serbia risks losing its pre-accession funding if the media situation in the country continues to worsen.

Making a statement: “Free media and, by extension, functioning democracy are in growing danger in Serbia. We welcome the strong wording from the European Parliament but believe more must be done to ensure the rights and freedoms of Serbian journalists and media are protected,” the organizations write in a joint statement, published against a backdrop of last week’s adoption of the European Parliament’s 2022 report on Serbia.

Context: Serbia dropped 12 places to 79th in the recently published World Press Freedom index by Reporters without Borders. RSF highlighted issues like journalists critical of the ruling party having restricted access to interviews with government representatives and political attacks on journalists. The European Parliament’s report, meanwhile, said Serbia has become a safe haven for Russian propaganda.

LUKASHENKO WATCH: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko hasn’t been seen in public since Tuesday, triggering speculation he’s seriously ill, Reuters reports.

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AGENDA

— Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council at 10 a.m. Arrivals from 8 a.m.; press conference with Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas and Swedish Minister for Social Affairs Jakob Forssmed at 5:45 p.m. (times approximate). Watch.

— Eurogroup meeting 3 p.m. Arrivals at 1:30 p.m.; doorstep by Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe (TBC) at 2:45 p.m.; press conference by Donohoe; Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni and European Stability Mechanism Managing Director Pierre Gramegna at 6:30 p.m. Watch.

— Beyond Growth 2023 conference. MEP Philippe Lamberts, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Parliament President Roberta Metsola and Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič among those participating. Full program. Watch.

— Copenhagen Democracy Summit. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg participates virtually at 12:15 p.m. Watch.

— Spring 2023 Economic Forecast. Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni holds press conference at 10 a.m. Watch.

— Press conference by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel ahead of the G7 summit in Japan at noon. Watch.

— High Representative Josep Borrell participates in policy dialogue at the European Policy Center at 5 p.m. Watch.

— Commission President Ursula von der Leyen receives India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal and Minister of Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

— Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager meets with Spain’s Economy and Digital Transformation Minister Nadia Calviño; meets via videoconference with Minister for Digital and Transport of Germany Volker Wissing.

— German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivers keynote and takes part in a Q&A at the Global Solutions Summit at 1:45 p.m.

BRUSSELS CORNER

AWARDED: A Belgian app for refugees, Lithuania’s Mobile Climate Museum and a Dutch platform for young EU affairs journalists are the winners of this year’s Charlemagne Youth Prize, jointly awarded by the European Parliament and the International Charlemagne Prize Foundation last Friday. Details.

PRIDE ARCHIVES: To celebrate the upcoming 20th anniversary of legalized same-sex marriage in Belgium, the Archives and Museums of the City of Brussels are collecting objects related to the LGBTQI+ rights movement. Find out where to donate here.

NEW CONNECTIONS TO EINDHOVEN AIRPORT: Flixbus will run new connections from Brussels via Antwerp to Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands as of June.

‘BAD ENGLISH’ RULES: Say what you will about Frans Timmermans, but the European Commission’s Green Deal czar knows his way around languages and he’s calling it for crap English. “This is the first time in human history that we have in Lingua Franca that is not just for the elites,” he told an audience of Dutch students on Friday. “And this is the first time in human history that we have a true Lingua Franca for all: bad English.” Your Playbook author is very glad to hear that you’re all now talking at my native standard. But while you may have mastered bad English stakeholder chat, there’s much more to learn: repeat after me, “ay up me duck.”

NOTTS COUNTY ARE BACK: Over the weekend, Notts County won their playoff final to return to the 92-team English football league structure after years down in semi-professional purgatory. This is newsworthy not only because I’m from Nottingham, or because Ryan Reynolds believes it to be, but also because the Magpies, as they are affectionately known, are the world’s oldest professional football club and without them, Italian powerhouse Juventus wouldn’t play in stripes either.

BIRTHDAYS: Former European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström; Former Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen; MEPs Alessandro Panza, Martin Sonneborn, Nacho Sánchez Amor and Markus Pieper; POLITICO Europe’s former CEO Claire Boussagol; European Commission’s Maya Angelova; European Climate Foundation’s Claire Muurmans; European Public Prosecutor Laura Codruța Kövesi, a POLITICO 28 alum; ZDF’s Anne Gellinek; BBC’s Sophie Raworth.

THANKS TO: Playbook reporter Ketrin Jochecová, Suzanne Lynch, Gregorio Sorgi, Gavin Gabriel, Aoife White, Laurens Cerulus and our producer Grace Stranger.

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