[tremon]

but the cause of the escalation was the current ruling party

Of Turkey, yes. There's an understanding amongst democratic countries that you do not interfere in national elections. Sending a member of the cabinet to another country during national elections is interfering. Any Dutch government should have sent them packing, and the Turkish government was actually counting on that: now Erdogan has additional ammunition to paint the EU as an enemy. It surprises me that he hasn't declared The Netherlands to be secretly ruled by Gulen yet.

Do you really think it would have gone down nicely if the European Commission would have campaigned in England during the Brexit campaign? Or if Putin would have gone to the US to campaign for Trump?