Speaking at a summit titled “Turkey’s vision of the future: Where are we in the transformation?” organized by the Fourth Generation Research Center (IV. Kuşak), Babacan stated that careful calculations are crucial when developing economic policies, stressing that populism will not save the day.
“In times like this, it is crucial that appropriate policies are enacted without resorting to populism. This is the time for rational policies. If you look at governments who have enacted populist policies, many examples of which are apparent today, they haven’t benefited from them at all. In fact, the support for those governments falls. … There is absolutely no place for populism in Turkey’s politics. We must do whatever is right.”
He also stressed the importance of explaining the logic behind policies. “It is important to make sound decisions and share them with the public. Explaining these policies is the job of politicians, but many countries don’t do this properly, and this is beginning to worry us. We’re no longer an isolated economy; we are open to the world, and developments in the global economy will inevitably affect us. We can’t just say, ‘Let’s become introverted; whatever happens in the world is not our problem.’ Therefore we are always behind the right kinds of policies in the international sphere,” he said.
