The art of diplomacy involves never saying never and always leaving possibilities open. Viewed in that context, Jean-Claude Juncker’s spokesman chose some unusually clear words this week, saying that if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan moves to bring back the death penalty in the country, he will have crossed the “reddest of red lines.”

Such were the preliminary conclusions following Turkey’s constitutional referendum last Sunday. Some 51.4 percent of Turkish voters cast ballots in favor of their president’s plans to restructure the government according to his whim. “We can no longer simply return to business as usual,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn of Austria said in response.

That especially applies to Germany, which is currently coming to terms with the fact that 412,00 Turks living in the country voted in favor of Erdogan’s referendum — 63.1 percent of them, in fact, a higher result than in Turkey itself. One can, of course, seek to play down those numbers, by pointing out, for example, that every second Turkish-German eligible to vote chose not to cast a ballot. Or that a significant number of children or grandchildren of Turkish immigrant families weren’t allowed to vote because they only possess German citizenship. And all of that is true. But at the end of the day, 412,000 Turks living in Germany voted in favor of Erdogan’s referendum. They voted against democracy.

more:   http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/brussels-and-berlin-shaken-by-turkish-referendum-a-1144290.html