Doing arms deals on the back of students

06 May 2025

One could imagine that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's attempts to turn Türkiye into a full autocracy would make European leaders question their relationship with him. But no: Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni recently hosted him in Rome, where the two agreed to deepen ties in defence and trade.

They mainly discussed the multimillion-euro partnership between Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar and Italian aerospace firm Leonardo, who want to build unmanned aerial vehicles together. Besides being a commercial deal, it signals a new phase of military capacity sharing in the Mediterranean – and Italy's increasing desire to form foreign policy independently of the rest of the EU.

Now, while this might be promising for both governments, they conveniently avoided discussing the uncomfortable stuff, like Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu's detention, by taking no questions during the press conference after the summit.

Instead, Meloni publicly thanked Erdoğan, claiming that "migration from Türkiye has dropped to zero." On the same day, Turkish opposition leader Özgür Özel told Corriere della Sera, "If you believe Erdoğan, you'll believe the Tower of Pisa is straight."

Then, just days after the summit, Italy abruptly cancelled visas for at least 5,000 Turkish nationals, citing a "category mismatch." Following protests outside visa centres, the Italian mission in Türkiye attributed the mass cancellations to a "technical fault." This incident follows a crisis last autumn when over a thousand Turkish students accepted into Italian universities were denied student visas.