“I have difficulty in understanding one point, which is the CHP's being against Europe or its not being pro-Europe,” Steinmeier told Turkish journalists. Along with the CHP, some Kemalist, secular and bureaucratic circles in Turkey are cold to Turkey's accession into the EU and are opposed to reforms that will make it happen, although some of them do not admit it openly. This has prompted many to think that Turkey should be concerned more about the opponents of its EU accession at home than those in Europe.According to Yeni Şafak's Ali Bayramoğlu, those who believe the CHP is a leftist party that supports democracy and defends Turkey's membership in the EU only live in Turkey and they vote for the CHP because of these beliefs. “Those who talk about universal values should see the world through universal glasses,” he says. Bayramoğlu thinks the most important problem will be solved if it can be seen that the CHP's mentality is blocking pluralism in the political arena and that this is mentality is at the center of political crisis in Turkey. “The CHP mentality binds Turkey to a single party. The race among parties in democracies should be for raising the bar of freedom. The quality of democracy can only be so much in a country where so-called social democrat parties stand up for gangs,” says Bayramoğlu complaining about the CHP's failure to contribute to the improvement of democracy in Turkey.
Referring to the results of the European Parliament (EP) elections held across Europe last week in which center-right parties that oppose Turkey's EU accession won, Sabah's Emre Aköz thinks the EP election results may encourage some nationalists and ultranationalists in Turkey to voice their opposition to Turkey's EU membership more loudly. He thinks the real problem regarding Turkey's EU entry in Turkey is not caused by those who obviously oppose it, but by those who seem to be pro-EU but actually do their best to impede the accession process, such as the CHP. He says a government which is against the military's influence in politics in Turkey has to deal not only with the opposition in the parliament but also with members of the military and those appointed because they do not want Turkey's accession to the EU. “The reason for their opposition is because political parties will not be closed down in an EU-member Turkey unless they defend violence. Since the Cyprus, Kurdish and Alevi issues will be solved in an EU-member Turkey, the manipulative tools of the Kemalist bureaucracy will be taken from them,” he says. In Aköz's view, the political atmosphere in Europe, which is against Turkey today, may change for the better, but Turkey's biggest problem is at home, as the conservative bureaucracy and the CHP resist reforms that will bring Turkey closer to its EU goal.
