The fiction that Turkey is a candidate to join the EU is unravelling

AUSTRIA’S CHANCELLOR,EUEUEU Sebastian Kurz, may have been speaking for a few other European governments earlier this summer when he suggested that Turkey would be the most appropriate refuge for Afghans escaping the Taliban. But he was not speaking for Turkey, or for the Afghans themselves. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, declared last week that Turkey would not be “Europe’s refugee warehouse”. Most Turks agree. In a country home to well over 4m migrants and refugees, including an estimated 200,000-600,000 Afghans, resentment towards the newcomers is mounting. But so is frustration that Turkey, formally a candidate for membership in the , has become its buffer state.For years, policy wonks used to reach for a variation of an old Soviet joke to describe the membership talks between Turkey and the : we pretend to negotiate, and they pretend to reform. Today, there is no use pretending. The accession process is dead. In its place, a deal the struck with Mr Erdogan to keep migrants and refugees out of Europe has taken centre stage in the relationship. That agreement, too, is starting to come under strain.