Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented European leaders with engraved ‘luxury’ pistols on Wednesday, July 8th.
The gifts, handed over during the NATO summit in Ankara, mean that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa are now each the owner of an elaborately decorated Turkish firearm. According to Costa’s security team
We will follow the Belgian procedures to bring it to Belgium and then we will store it in line with the security requirements imposed by the General Secretariat of the Council.
Costa’s new sidearm is likely to be decommissioned in Turkey before leaving the country. (This is the fate of the gun presented to outgoing UK prime minister Keir Starmer, although BBC radio suggested it would have been deactivated prior to its receipt.)
The value of each pistol, cleaning kit, and ammunition combination is likely too high for these to be considered as ‘personal’ gifts to public figures under the rules, so these are all likely to end up in some form of institutional ownership. Despite this, some awkwardness will linger on—because the Brussels mainstream fervently supports gun control.
