EU and Erdogan: Turkey’s tools for infiltrating Europe (1-6)

Mahmud al-Batakoshi

Turkey has been trying to infiltrate European Union states since the coming to power in it by the Justice and Development Party, which is head by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In trying to do this, Turkey has relied on many tools, including through Turkish communities that are spread out through the old continent. It also tries to do this through alliances with Islamist groups.

In the current episodes of this series on Erdogan and the European Union, we will focus on Turkey’s attempts to infiltrate Europe since the 1980s.

These attempts began with the signing of agreements with European countries under which branches of the Turkish-Islamic Union would be opened for the Directorate of Religious Affairs, widely known as Diyanet, in European capitals.

The directorate supervises mosques that host Turkish nationals, manages Islamic associations, and act in granting halal meat certificates.

It does this to neutralize the Turkish communities in Europe.

When the Justice and Development Party came to power in Turkey in 2002, it found a strong and wide organizational structure that includes hundreds of mosques, associations and economic institutions already under the control of the Turkish state.

In Belgium, the movement controls 300 Islamic societies and 147 mosques.

It has about 15,000 imams, teachers and employees. The Turkish-Islamic Union runs about 700 mosques in Belgium. It has about 9,000 imams and teachers in Germany, in addition to Sufi schools and cultural associations that Ankara spends on generously.