turquía – españa
Istanbul – Somewhere between the kebab smoke and the sangria haze, Turkey and Spain have decided to flirt again. The rendezvous is billed as a “strategic partnership summit,” which in diplomatic French means “let’s see how much we can irritate everyone else while pretending we’re just talking trade.” The rest of the world, of course, watches the pas de deux with the polite horror of neighbors overhearing a couple’s therapy session: loud, repetitive, and destined to end with someone sleeping on the couch—probably the EU.
The ostensible agenda is mundane enough: renewable energy grids, defense procurement, and a joint bid to host the 2036 Olympics, because nothing screams fiscal prudence like promising velodromes you can’t afford while your youth unemployment hovers around 30 percent. Yet behind the bullet points lies a darker tango. Spain, still dizzy from its own Catalan hangover, needs Ankara’s cooperation to curb irregular migration across the Western Mediterranean. Turkey, meanwhile, would like Madrid’s vote when Brussels next scolds it for jailing journalists faster than most people scroll TikTok. Quid pro quo has never sounded so bilingual.
Globally, the courtship matters because it exposes the hairline fractures in NATO’s plaster saint routine. Spain has Patriot missiles stationed in Adana—an arrangement that looks increasingly like lending your ex your Netflix password: technically generous, emotionally fraught. Washington quietly worries that Ankara will pivot the batteries toward northern Syria whenever the State Department tweets something sanctimonious. Moscow, for its part, offers to throw in a couple of S-400 selfies just to watch the alliance squirm. Somewhere in Beijing, planners update the Belt-and-Road ledger: every intra-NATO lovers’ quarrel is another kilometer of high-speed rail China doesn’t have to finance.
The Mediterranean itself has become the couple’s shared therapist, mostly by drowning their mutual guilt. Turkish and Spanish rescue ships now coordinate on maritime disasters with the weary efficiency of divorce lawyers dividing custody of a goldfish. Each saved migrant is simultaneously a humanitarian triumph and a demographic IOU. Europe pays Ankara to keep Syrians on one side of the Aegean, then pays Madrid to keep Moroccans on the other. It’s a Ponzi scheme with life vests.
Economically, the affair produces odd offspring. Spanish fashion giant Inditex—parent of Zara—sources 20 percent of its “fast fashion” from Turkish mills, where Syrian teenagers earn fast wages. When Spanish consumers gasp at the latest 9-euro blouse, they are inhaling the scent of geopolitical compromise. Meanwhile, Turkish tomatoes, banned by Moscow whenever Putin feels peckish for leverage, arrive in Andalusian markets labeled “Product of the EU” after a brief siesta in Bulgarian packing plants. Globalization, ladies and gentlemen: the world’s most expensive shell game run by interns with shipping containers.
Culturally, the exchange is less subtle. Turkish soap operas dubbed into Spanish now beat domestic telenovelas in prime time, proving that melodrama is the one export immune to tariffs. In return, Ibiza DJs remix Ottoman folk songs into 3 a.m. bangers, ensuring that somewhere in Bodrum a grandmother’s lament about lost empire becomes ketamine-fueled cardio. Soft power has never been softer—or stickier, depending on the dance floor.
And so, beneath the shared tapas of octopus and raki, Turkey and Spain rehearse a marriage of inconvenience. Their vows—written in the small print of memoranda no voter will ever read—commit them to mutual distraction: Spain needs Turkey to remain Europe’s bouncer; Turkey needs Spain to remain Europe’s distracted bartender. Everyone else orders another round and pretends not to notice the rising tide licking at the patio. After all, the tab isn’t due until 2036—by which time the Olympic stadium may double as a climate refugee camp, complete with Zara uniforms and a catchy synth soundtrack. Until then, let the embers of empire glow; they provide just enough light to read the warning labels on the next shipment of cheap tomatoes.
