Do or die with the EU?

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had declared that he would put Turkey's EU membership process to vote in case the "yes" campaign won the April 16 referendum on Turkey's shift from a parliamentary system to a presidency. Since 51.5 percent of the Turkish people said "yes" last Sunday, now the question is whether Turkey will really part ways with the EU.

There is already a country that has walked down the same road: Britain voted on its EU membership last summer, which resulted in the Brexit decision. Yet today the situation the country is enmeshed in gives a lot of clue to track.

British Prime Minister Theresa May announced last week that the country will hold early elections on June 8. However the very same Mrs. May had declared previously that she was against early elections and the elections would take place as envisioned in 2020, making the Brits puzzled.

This will be a referendum on Brexit rather than usual elections. This is first of all due to the fact that May had become prime minister thanks to the Brexit result. Her predecessor David Cameron was pro-EU, who therefore had to resign following the Brexit vote. He was later replaced by May, who was initially also standing against Brexit. 

Even so May made a sharp U-turn and started to vigorously advocate leaving the EU. In addition, she assigned pro-Brexit politicians to key ministries. On top of that, last March she signed the official Brexit letter to begin the divorce from the EU.

Now May is calling for early elections mainly for the sake of Brexit. Her Conservative Party seems to be 20 percent ahead of the main opposition Labour Party. Hence May - who has only a working majority at the moment - is planning to hold a landslide majority in parliament, thereby...