A group of Germans with Turkish roots have formed a political group to compete in the European elections, sparking fears it could be a vehicle for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to expand his influence in the EU, Agence France-Presse reported.
Since its founding late last year, DAVA has come under intense scrutiny over its alleged links to Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
In an interview with AFP, DAVA strongly denied any connection, saying its main aim was to attract minorities with migrant backgrounds who currently feel unrepresented.
“We are not an offshoot of the [ruling] AKP in Turkey, we are not the extended arm of Erdogan,” Fatih Zingar, a lawyer and founding member of the Democratic Alliance for Diversity and Awakening, told AFP.
Germany is home to the world’s biggest overseas community of people of Turkish origin, numbering around 2.8 million, many descendants of workers who came to the country to plug labor shortages in the 1960s and ’70s.
About half of this number still have only Turkish passports, while others have only German citizenship.
Erdoğan enjoys strong support among Turkish nationals living in Germany, and there has long been sensitivity about perceived attempts by Ankara to win influence in the country.
Critics are unconvinced by DAVA’s public statements, and some of the German press has dubbed it the “Erdogan party.”
Max Lucks — a lawmaker from the Green party, a member of Germany’s ruling coalition — said DAVA “draws its top staff and voters from AKP-affiliated organizations, or organizations that are directly controlled from Ankara. “It stands to reason that it would also defend the AKP’s authoritarian policies,” Lucks, who is also the chairman and the German-Turkish parliamentary friendship group, told AFP.
Opponents of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition have seized on the issue to criticize the government for recently overhauling the law so people from many countries, including Turkey, can now obtain dual citizenship in Germany — and vote in the country’s elections.
The emergence of DAVA showed that changing citizenship laws was a “categorical mistake,” Thorsten Frei of the center-right CDU party told German media. “This will be another gateway for foreign influence on German politics.”
There is evidence of links between the group’s candidates and Ankara.
Zingar, DAVA’s leading candidate for the European polls, used to be a senior figure in the Union of International Democrats, described as a lobbying organization for the AKP in Germany, although he no longer holds any positions in the organization.
Some other candidates that the party intends to field also have links to groups with purportedly close ties to Ankara.
