about the future of the relations between Turkey (under AKP rule) and the West, where he advocated for an inclusive stance towards Turkey and criticized the policy of the United States in that regard. In February 2020, he joined around fifty former European prime ministers and foreign ministers in signing an open letter published by British newspaper The Guardian to condemn U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, saying it would create an apartheid-like situation in occupied Palestinian territory. Economic policy On the occasion of the G20 summit in 2011, Gabriel joined Ed Miliband, the leader of the UK's Labour Party, and Håkan Juholt, the chairman of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, in suggesting a “new deal” for economic growth. They also said G20 leaders should commit to the introduction of a financial transaction tax for all major financial centers and an agreement to separate consumer and investment banking. In a letter to the European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, Gabriel stated in March 2014 that “special investment-protection provisions are not required in an agreement between the E.U. and the U.S” on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Instead, he later called for a public trade and investment court to replace the current system of private arbitration, and to enable appeals against arbitration rulings. Meanwhile, he has continuously warned against overblowing expectations for an economic boost from TTIP but maintained that the pact was needed to set high common standards for consumers. By August 2016, Gabriel said talks on TTIP had "de facto" failed. In September 2014, Gabriel rejected the inclusion of an investor-state dispute settlement clause in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, prompting a renegotiation that delayed the entry into force of the agreement. Following the renegotiations, he championed CETA to demonstrate the center-left party's business credentials. In a 2014 meeting with French economist Thomas Piketty, whose best-selling work Capital in the Twenty-First Century calls for a wealth tax, Gabriel rejected such a progressive levy on capital as “crazy” for business. He also argued that a wealth tax would generate no more than 8 billion euros ($9.9 billion) a year. Together with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Gabriel presented a joint proposal in 2015 to set up a common eurozone budget. Energy policy Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Gabriel harshly criticized the International Atomic Energy