Germany’s former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder stated in his latest book “Letzte Chance” (The Last Chance) that Turkey has become an “incontrovertible dominant force” in the eastern Mediterranean.

“Europe should accept the fact that Turkey became a dominant force in the eastern Mediterranean. Whether they like this or not,” said the 77-year-old ex-chancellor in the book he wrote with Gregor Schöllgen, a history professor lecturing at the universities of New York, Oxford and London.

Stressing the need for new world order, Schröder picked a special part for Turkey, China and Russia in his book.

“A new world order, that we need, is a last chance for the West. Turkey, China and Russia are important actors in world politics. The West will lose if they act to these countries with the mentality of the Cold War,” Schröder noted.

Reminding the history of the Turkey-EU relations, the former Chancellor highlighted the “mistakes of the Europeans.”

“The contrast with Turkey and the West is the result of the European Union’s wrong politics. We Europeans, especially the Germans, saw this country [Turkey] and its citizens with a humiliating and pretentious manner,” he added.

Schröder underlined that Germany was the only country in the EU that wanted Turkey as a member of the bloc.

“Since the Ankara Agreement in 1963, no other country than Germany opened an EU membership perspective to Turkey. But except the last era of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany] SPD-Greens coalition, none of them were frank [to Turkey],” he said.

According to Schröder, Europe’s “delaying tactics” for Turkey’s EU membership is inadmissible. “Asking Turkey to fulfill the conditions for the visa liberalization and delaying the important improvements at EU membership negotiations at the same means saying, ‘We do not want you.’”