November 08, 2002

Turkey entry 'would destroy EU'

The man shaping the future constitution of the European Union was quoted on Friday as saying Turkey's entry into the EU would be "the end of Europe".
Mr Giscard d'Estaing told Le Monde, [sic] "Its capital is not in Europe, 95% of its population live outside Europe, it is not a European country."
[...]
The debate within the EU about Turkey has intensified following Sunday's victory of the AK Party, which has roots in the banned Islamist Virtue Party.

Mr Erdogan says the party is a modern conservative, secular party, and has made clear that the new government's top priority will be to move forward the country's bid to join the EU.

Correspondents say Turkey knows it has to fight against those in Europe who are inclined to regard the EU as a Christian club.

Mr Erdogan is to make his first post-election visit to Greece on 18 November. He and his hosts are both expected to call for the EU to set a date for the start of accession talks at the Copenhagen summit in mid-December.

The proposal has strong backing from the US.

However, EU leaders said at their Brussels summit last month that Turkey had not yet made sufficient progress with political and human rights reforms for membership talks to begin.

Turkey has for centuries been in an ambiguous position, straddling both Occident and Orient geographically, politically and culturally.
In its history, it has been both the center of Christendom and of Islam (during its Ottoman Empire period).
This feeling of rejection that it feels from the EU because it is a "Christian club" and Turkey, with only a minority of its citizens that are Christians and the majority Muslim, is probably not misplaced.
To a large extent, the EU is a Christian club..and a Northern, White, Western European men's club,too. (Don't tell the Turks! Or the Ukrainians...or the Poles, etc. etc.)
As I suggested here a few days ago (in my post "No Turkey for Thanksgiving"), the EU is not exactly ready to welcome the newly elected, potentially radical Islamist régime of Turkey with open arms...
AK leader Erdogan and his party remind me of our Dims, they'll promise their followers anything to get and stay in power.
In this case, they're committed to EU membership for their country as *the* solution to their current economic problems, rather than proposing plans for internal economic reforms.
I'm not sure about Turkey under this AK "rule", but I think sober, right-minded Turks will soon discover that the United States is a much better friend and ally than the EU could ever be.

*"The end of [Western] Europe," BTW, is very likely coming, but not for the reason Giscard-d'Estaing thinks.
It will be that ineffective house of cards "built on sand" the Bible talks about, the EU itself, that will bring this about.
And no-one seems more keen on making that happen than the arrogant, power-hungry bureaucrats in Brussels like Valérie and his like-minded colleagues.