lentulusgracchus,
The Turkish economy grew by 8.9% during the first three quarters of 2010 and it has been growing quite rapidly for the past 10 years. So Erdogan and AKP are feeling quite good with themselves.
Whether Turkey needs Europe more than Europe needs Turkey could be a topic of intense debate in the coming decades. The demographics of Europe will make sustained economic growth very difficult. Meanwhile, Turkey offers a relatively large, young and skilled population. In addition, Turkey has recently been looking East (towards the ‘stans’ and China) and South (towards Africa).
I don’t fully understand what Mr. Erdogan is up to, but it is a much more benign affair than what obtains in Pakistan and Iraq. Mr. Erdogan is not in the habit of committing the type of human rights abuses the Generals were known for, and he has really performed well economically (better than most Kemalists). So he is genuinely popular.
Now I am not sure if Europe and America have a problem with the Turkish model so far.
Not with the modernizing, secularist model of Ataturk and his successors -- which btw entailed a good deal of personal freedom except in certain sensitive areas of politics like the Kurdish issue and the Turkish Communists and Islamists.