Police raid Turkey’s CHP headquarters to oust Özel

Riot police fired tear gas into the headquarters of Turkey's main opposition party on Sunday, forcing out the elected leader a court had removed four days earlier. The raid on the CHP (Republican People's Party, Turkey's oldest political party) capped a judicial operation to neutralize the one politician capable of beating President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the ballot box. Europe responded with a spokesperson statement.

The Court Replaced the Winner with the Loser

Under Özgür Özel, the CHP won the most mayoral seats in Turkey's 2024 local elections, its strongest result in two decades (Handelsblatt). Polls showed the opposition competitive against Erdoğan's AKP for the first time in a generation. An Ankara appellate court resolved that problem on May 21. It declared CHP's 2023 leadership congress void, citing bribery allegations, and ordered Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu back into the leadership. Kılıçdaroğlu lost to Erdoğan in the 2023 presidential election.

The court swapped the opponent who could win for the opponent who already lost. Paul Levin of Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies put it bluntly: "Erdogan has decided he cannot allow the same thing that happened to Orbán to happen to him" (GP).

When Özel refused to vacate CHP headquarters, more than a hundred officers cut through the gate and tear-gassed the building. He walked to parliament in the rain and told supporters the party would take to the streets.

Europe Calculates, Then Stays Quiet

The EU's formal reaction came before the raid and well below the political level. A spokesperson for the European External Action Service (the EU's diplomatic arm) noted the court decision "gives rise to questions about the rule of law" (EEAS). No statement from Commission President von der Leyen. No statement from High Representative Kallas. Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul expressed "concern" (Handelsblatt). France said nothing.

The restraint follows a structural pattern visible across EU external relations: the stronger a country's leverage over European interests, the weaker Europe's democratic standards enforcement. Turkey holds cards in migration management, sits inside NATO's command structure, and sells armed drones to multiple European partners. No government has announced a policy review. No capital has called for a reassessment of defense cooperation.

Turkey analyst Gönül Tol warned that Ankara is building "a system modeled on Russia, where the ruler determines the opposition" (Handelsblatt). The EU's frozen accession process, theoretically the mechanism for imposing democratic conditions on candidate countries, sits untouched.

The Contradiction No One Will Name

Özel has called for a new CHP congress. Turkey's Supreme Election Council (the constitutional body that oversees party congresses) held an emergency session to weigh whether the civil court had jurisdiction over internal party matters. A ruling in Özel's favor would pit two branches of Turkey's judiciary against each other.

The geopolitical contradiction, though, is already visible. NATO allies will sit across from a host who sent riot police into his opponent's headquarters. The EU maintains an accession framework built for exactly this situation: a candidate country dismantling opposition politics through judicial manipulation. Both tools exist. Neither is being activated.

This gap between available mechanisms and political will tracks perfectly with Turkey's strategic position. Hungary, which holds less European leverage, faced frozen funds, Article 7 proceedings (the EU's most severe democratic punishment), and sustained institutional pressure. Turkey, which controls refugee flows and occupies a critical military geography, gets a spokesperson noting that questions arise. The enforcement gradient runs inverse to dependence. Ankara knows this, and acts accordingly.