The EU's unchanging goal from 2009 to 2026: Blue Homeland

The Turkey Report, adopted by the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 7, 2026, and which became the official position of the European Parliament after completing the parliamentary process in June, has once again revealed that nothing has changed in the EU's maritime perspective on Turkey.

The report explicitly targeted the Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan) doctrine. It condemned Turkey's casus belli (cause for war) decision regarding Greece's potential 12-mile territorial waters decision. It was claimed that the Turkey-Libya Memorandum of Understanding on Maritime Delimitation is incompatible with international law. Research and drilling activities conducted under the protection of Turkish warships, NAVTEX announcements, energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, and Turkey's activities to defend its rights and interests in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean were made subjects of criticism.

The 2025 Report was in the same tone, and even the inclusion of the Blue Homeland concept in Turkish school textbooks was evaluated by the European Parliament as a worrying development.

In short, the European Parliament is not demanding that Turkey defend its sovereignty and sovereign rights in the seas, but that it renounce them.

However, this is not the first time. Those who target the Blue Homeland today were directly targeting the Turkish Naval Forces yesterday.

On page 32 of the 2009 Turkey Progress Report, the Turkish Naval Forces were complained about by name. The report stated that the Turkish Navy was obstructing the activities of ships searching for hydrocarbons on behalf of the Republic of Cyprus.

Let us note this. At that time, the struggle for maritime jurisdiction that Turkey is conducting in the Eastern Mediterranean today had not yet begun. Despite this, the Turkish Navy was still the target. For them, the problem was Turkey having power in the seas.

Shortly after the Turkish Naval Forces were targeted in the 2009 EU report as if they were an actor independent of Ankara, FETÖ plots, primarily the Sledgehammer (Balyoz) case, were put into action. The admirals, commanders, and staff officers of the Turkish Navy were subjected to a purge process. The most knowledgeable and experienced personnel in the fields of Cyprus, the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the maritime geopolitics that would later be called the Blue Homeland were sent to prison.

History is sometimes too clear to be explained by coincidences. As the hydrocarbon competition in the Eastern Mediterranean grew after 2009, the criticisms in EU reports also hardened. The deterrent presence of the Turkish Naval Forces, NAVTEX activities, the protection of research and drilling ships, and their military activities in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean were systematically made subjects of criticism. Especially in the 2018-2020 period, drilling activities carried out under the protection of Turkish warships became one of the fundamental crisis topics in EU-Turkey relations. In other words, the target has not changed. Only the concepts used have changed.

In 2009, the Turkish Navy was being criticized. In 2026, the Blue Homeland is being criticized.

The strategic goal of the EU and the US does not change. To confine Turkey to Anatolia, to make it renounce its rights and interests in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, to isolate the TRNC, and to expand Europe's maritime jurisdiction through the Greece-GCA duo, whom they will use as cheap blood.

For this reason, it is thought-provoking that some EU sympathizers in Turkey still talk about a vision of membership. Because what the EU expects from Turkey is geopolitical retreat. There are those who think that a Turkey that gives up on the Aegean, withdraws from the Eastern Mediterranean, and writes off the TRNC will be more easily accepted into the EU.

However, when the 2009 report and the 2026 report are placed side by side, the truth emerges with all its clarity. The EU's problem with Turkey is the seas.

The problem is the Turkish Naval Forces. The problem is the Blue Homeland.

The US and the EU have always found collaborators in these lands to protect their interests. Their soldiers left in 1922 just as they had come. However, their seeds remained here. With the 1952 NATO membership, they entered our capillaries. The problem is whether our body can withstand this struggle; it is a question of whether Turkey will allow itself to be pushed to the continent.