by MATTEO TACCONI
Turkey’s influence in the Balkans can be measured also in terms of the success of soap operas. The various TV series made in studios on the Bosphorus are a runaway success throughout the former-Yugoslavia as well as in Bulgaria and Romania. There are many viewers even in Serbia and Croatia, countries with a less powerful legacy from the days of the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, local media reports indicate that more and more people, ecstatic about these soap operas, have planned holidays in Istanbul or have enrolled in Turkish language courses.
These soaps are, however, only one of the many elements in an ambitious political-economic strategy renamed “neo-Ottoman” and obsession for Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. It consists in broadening Turkey’s radius of action to the old imperial area, the Gulf, the Middle East and especially the Balkans, by emphasising the attractiveness of the “Turkish model”, a balanced mix of Islam, democracy, free market and modernity.
It would be restrictive to think that Davutoglu intends to develop the plot mainly by relying on the importance of the past. That is not the case. In recent years Turkey has invested a great deal in the Balkans, especially economically. Two very important agreements have been signed with Bulgaria, one aimed at creating an energy grid (gas), the other at linking Sofia and Istanbul with a fast and modern train. Important agreements have also been entered in with Macedonia and Kosovo, with private Turkish investors building a motorway linking Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, to Macedonia’s capital, Skopje. In Macedonia, Turkish investors won the contract for building an underground stretch of motorway into which all the through-traffic suffocating the Macedonian city will be rerouted. And this is not all. Trade with Serbia is soaring, and, compared to the previous year, in 2010 it rose by a massive 110%. Banks are also playing an important role with Ziirat (the second largest Turkish bank in terms of capitalisation) and Halk leading the way.
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