It is the biggest mistake of most tourists in Turkey to believe that there is a permanent Mediterranean climate throughout the country. We have winter too. The cold, especially in Central Anatolia, is in no way inferior to that in Germany. But this year the winter in Turkey will be harder than ever. No, not because of climate change. Rather, we will feel the cold to the core because the price of natural gas has been increased several times in quick succession. Don't be too quick to think that it has to do with the fact that energy prices have risen around the world. We are dependent on foreign countries for energy, but we owe the coldest winter of all time to Erdoğan's economic policy. As it says in “Game of Thrones”: “Winter is coming” - for all of us.

On the Turkish version of the column


Yazının Türkçe orijinalini okumak için tıklayın

Since Erdoğan led Turkey to the autocracy, the economy has suffered from massive problems.

The abolition of the primacy of law and uncertainty have driven foreign investment to a low point.

Why should anyone invest in a country where all decisions depend on Erdoğan?

Erdoğan's theory that “high interest rates lead to inflation” leads to a historic plunge in the Turkish lira.

In the last two years alone, Erdoğan changed the management of the central bank four times to lower the key interest rate.

Eleven months for a pair of boots

Thanks to Erdoğan's thesis, we are all the more cold. Why? Because we switch our gas heating to the smallest possible flame, because the natural gas that we obtain from abroad in exchange for foreign currency has risen ten times in the past eleven months. Or we can do without natural gas and use traditional methods. Sales of wood and coal stoves climbed to a twenty-year record. The big cities now smell of soot again, just like they used to.

It is not just a few low-wage earners who suffer from heating problems.

Just a few weeks ago, a survey found that 82 percent of the population worried about how they should pay their heating bills this winter.

These are not only supporters of the opposition, 65 percent of Erdoğan's voters said they were worried about the approaching winter.

As at home, we will also be freezing outside.

Almost half of the working population have to get by on the minimum wage.

A minimum wage worker has to save for eleven months for a pair of boots.

At the beginning of this year, the minimum wage was the equivalent of 312 euros.

Due to the depreciation of the Turkish lira by around 25 percent, it is now 246 euros.

A diploma that no one has seen until today

And what do the architects of this scenario say about it?

Let's start with the energy minister: Fatih Dönmez advises people who complain about the rise in the price of natural gas to heat less.

That sounds like the recommendation from the palace with its billions of euros that citizens should reduce their portions, doesn't it?

Erdoğan, who says "I am an economist" at every opportunity, once again engages in disinformation about Europe in order to make us forget the reality he has created.

He ignores the fact that the institution under his thumb puts the inflation rate at 20 percent, but independent economists at 50 percent, and explains: "The high inflation in Europe is fueling racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia."