The Real Crisis For Europe

Newsweek International ^ | Oct. 10, 2005 issue | By Charles Grant

[.cnI redruM]

The anti-Turkish mood is rooted in the EU's broader malaise. People living in economic insecurity are afraid to embrace change.

So, is Turkey to start membership talks with the European Union? The reception could hardly be more hostile. As the public sees it, the EU is big enough already. Political leaders from France's Nicolas Sarkozy to Germany's Angela Merkel are opposed. Austria wants to offer a "privileged partnership," not full membership.

Thus the chances of Turkey's (let alone Ukraine's or Serbia's) ending up in the Union would seem to be slim. But are they? Now is now, and tomorrow is tomorrow, and much could change between. Consider the degree to which the anti-Turkish mood is rooted in the EU's broader malaise, consisting of three strands. The first is political leadership—"sorely lacking in Europe today," says Giuliano Amato, the former Italian prime minister and vice chairman of Europe's constitutional convention. The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, is intelligent and able, and supports further enlargement. Yet he cannot steer the EU without strong support from Berlin and Paris. And here, the current crop of national leaders is among the least impressive in the Union's history, leaving Europe listless and without direction.

A second strand is slow growth in the core eurozone economies of France, Germany and Italy. If the French referendum in May had taken place while the economy was growing at 2.5 percent, Amato suggests, the EU constitution would have passed. It did not because people living in economic insecurity are understandably afraid to embrace change.

[.cnI redruM]

The EU considers the Turks good enough to pick the cotton, but not worthy of sharing a Mint Julep with. Gee, I wonder why they hate us?

[redgolum]

I don't want the Turks in the EU for different reasons. Until the Haggai Sophia is returned to the Orthodox.

But I am pretty partisan about that.

[bobjam]

Why does Turkey want to join the EU?

[neutrino]

I'm sure that Turkey will do for Europe what Mexico, Ecuador, and Guatemala are doing for the U.S.

Why Europe would want to encourage that is quite another matter.

[ClaireSolt]

Maybe Turkey could be the key to a growing Middle Eastern common market. I don't see it becoming part of Europe.

[GSlob]

Samuel Huntington ["Clash"] provided a different analysis. Cross-civilizational entities either do not work at all, or work only under duress, and even then badly. Look at all the trouble NATO took with Greeks and Turks...

[.cnI redruM]

Europe already has millions of the Turks via their guest worker programs. They can have them as friends, or as very resentful dependents who know full well they are being spit upon by a self-selecting elite.