Police Oust Özel From CHP

Riot police fired tear gas into the headquarters of Turkey's main opposition party on Sunday and forced out Özgür Özel, the elected leader whom a court had removed four days earlier. The raid on the CHP (Republican People's Party, Turkey's oldest political party) was the hard end of a judicial move against the one opposition figure now capable of beating President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the ballot box. Europe answered with a spokesperson statement.

The court replaced the winner with the loser

Under Özel, the CHP won the most mayoral seats in Turkey's 2024 local elections, its strongest result in two decades (Handelsblatt). For the first time in a generation, polling showed the opposition competitive against Erdoğan's AKP. An Ankara appellate court dealt with that problem on May 21. It declared the 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 replaced the opponent who could win with the opponent who had already lost. Paul Levin of Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies put it plainly: "Erdogan has decided he cannot allow the same thing that happened to Orbán to happen to him" (GP).

When Özel refused to leave CHP headquarters, more than a hundred officers cut through the gate and fired tear gas inside 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 below the political level that would have signalled real pressure. A spokesperson for the European External Action Service, the EU's diplomatic arm, said the court decision "gives rise to questions about the rule of law" (EEAS). There was no statement from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. There was no statement from High Representative Kaja Kallas. Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul expressed "concern" (Handelsblatt). France said nothing.

That restraint follows a familiar pattern in EU foreign policy: the more leverage a country has over European interests, the softer Europe's enforcement of democratic standards becomes. Turkey helps manage migration, sits inside NATO's command structure, and sells armed drones to several European partners. No government has announced a policy review. No capital has called for defence cooperation to be reassessed.

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, supposedly the mechanism for attaching democratic conditions to candidate countries, remains 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 consider whether the civil court had authority over internal party matters. A ruling for Özel would set two branches of Turkey's judiciary against each other.

The geopolitical contradiction is already plain. NATO allies will sit across from a host who sent riot police into his opponent's headquarters. The EU has an accession framework designed for exactly this kind of case: a candidate country using the courts to dismantle opposition politics. Both tools exist. Neither is being used.

The gap between available mechanisms and political will maps neatly onto Turkey's strategic value. Hungary, with less leverage over Europe, faced frozen funds, Article 7 proceedings, the EU's most severe democratic sanction, and sustained institutional pressure. Turkey, which controls refugee flows and occupies critical military geography, gets a spokesperson saying questions arise. The weaker Europe's dependence, the stronger its principles become. Ankara knows that, and acts accordingly.