On 1 May, Taksim Square in Istanbul once again became the scene of clashes. More than 550 people were arrested after Turkish police intervened during the Labour Day demonstrations. In plain language: those who wanted to mark the workers' holiday ended up in police vans. This is Turkey in 2026 - a country presenting itself as a NATO power, but unable to let its citizens stand peacefully on their own square.

Context: Taksim is a symbolic site for the Turkish left. It is the same square where in 1977 more than 30 people were killed at a 1 May demonstration, an event that has remained in Turkish history as the „Taksim massacre". Since then, every commemoration of 1 May here has been heavily policed. But in recent years - and especially under the rise of the Erdogan regime - demonstrations here are crushed before they begin.

The police use tear gas and water cannons to break up the groups. Additional blockades on the metro lines leading to the square, ID checks for passers-by. All in the name of „public order". Translation: blockading a city in order to blockade a political event.

Why this 1 May in particular. The Turkish economy is in deep crisis - inflation above 60%, the lira sliding, real wages dropping. Economic problems usually end in political protest, and Erdogan knows it. So instead of the „right to assemble", a „preventive break-up tactic" is being applied - with 550 arrests, plenty of tear gas, and a message to all that any attempt at organised dissent will get a fast, rough response.

The Balkans watches this with particular attention. Bulgaria and Greece, as Turkey's neighbours, see the economic crisis as a migration risk. Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo - as an economic space tied to Turkey - measure the fallout of further instability. When one of the largest regional economies cannot stand on its own feet, the whole region shifts. That is something the news rarely spells out, but every citizen in the Balkans already feels it.