Articles by Katoikos World

The editorial team of Katoikos

US Spying, a very wrong calculation

The US intelligence establishment must have been very confident that their surveillance methods would never be discovered by the surveilled individuals in order to risk wiretapping European leaders. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand how on earth they decided to gamble those relationships with some of their closest European allies in exchange for information obtained from phone conversations of Hollande, Sarkozy, Chirac or, as revealed some time ago, Merkel. They calculated wrong.

Greece: are we really heading towards a breakthrough?

President Tusk has given an ultimatum when declaring on 19 June: “We are close to the point where the Greek government will have to choose between accepting what I believe is a good offer of continued support or head towards default.” According to Tusk, only a few days are left. The deadline, 30 June, is the day Greece is due to pay back €1.6 billion to the IMF, an amount it currently cannot afford. If it is to pay, Greece would first have to accept further funding from the “Institutions”, which would come only if the Greek government accepts undertaking a series of reforms dictated by them. The most contentious point of the proposed reforms is the request that Athens save or raise an additional 2.5% of GDP for the state budget, including through cutting pensions and/or raising taxes (VAT in particular)— possibilities that the Tsipras Government has recurrently rejected.

Goodbye “Mr. President”, let the halay begin!

By Deniz Torcu

On the afternoon of Sunday, 7 June, citizens of the Republic of Turkey followed their post-general election ritual: they turned on their TVs to catch the incoming results, poured a cup of tea and engaged in some country-saving debate that always pairs well. For the past three elections, the only “winners” have been the voters of the governing Justice and Development Party, with celebrations kicked off by one of Mr. Erdogan’s infamous “balcony speeches” in which he would proudly embrace the will of the people, dutifully accepting his role as the leader of the country.

Sultan no more

With 99 per cent of the Turkish election results out, it is clear that President Erdoğan’s AKP party has failed to secure the necessary parliamentary seats to singlehandedly change the constitution, initiate a referendum, or even form the next government. Mr. Erdoğan’s plans for amending the constitution and turning Turkey into a presidential republic with him at the help seem to have suffered a fatal blow. More than a defeat for Mr. Erdoğan, though, this is a victory for democracy in Turkey.

Turkey rejects Erdogan’s vision

Results announced a few hours after the closing of voting in Turkey indicate that the AKP is far from attaining the number of MPs that would allow it to amend the Constitution. Furthermore, the AKP may not be in a position to establish a single-party government. Erdogan’s announced plan to transform Turkey’s political system seems…

Parliamentary elections in Turkey: The end of the beginning or the beginning of the end

By Yanni Gigourtsis

A few hours separate us from perhaps the most critical elections in Turkey since the establishment of the multiparty parliamentary system in the late 1940s. Once again, as in the last 15 years, the protagonist in this year’s election–as it should not, at first reading – is the country’s President and, for many years, Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In the 7 June elections, however, the stakes are higher for the political future of the Turkish President. It is the future of the country and the course it will take in the coming decades that will be decided. Let me explain.

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