Turkey and EU

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First of all i want to greet the old friends here since i have been away for some time due to heavy work schedule. Most probably i will pop in and out since i still continue at this rate.
Anyway, i have a question regarding mainly the European citizens of the forum. As you all most probably know Turkey is about to start negotiations with the EU in order to join this large community. But there are (as always) some disadvantages that make this event something worth spending some gray cells.
For me some of these are the following:
1) Turkey is not a European country. Granted one small part of her is, but the majority of Turkeys lands are Asian.
2)The way Turkey is treating her European perspective is, to say the least insulting, arrogant.
3)I can't really see any benefit from this join-up.
I would really like to hear (read in this case) the opinions of the members of this board for this one. Not only on what i think (since the above statements are just a slice of my thoughts).
And i would really be interested to hear any opposite thoughts on this subject.
Thank you for your time.

 

Sorry, I'm off for the evening. I remember a similar topic from last year with Boc which may make some interesting reading to start you off. We've probably lost some visitors since then.

http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/34/92.html#000000

 

And here I was hoping for some good recipies....

 

@ Carcaroth
Things have changed since then and the problems are not quite the same. I am troubled with more current events not only the known reasons.
Turkey is going to start a long road towards an unknown goal, as things are now.
I am not only hoping to see the point of view of not only the EU members of this forum. In fact this one affects US also since US is paying a lot to Turkey for a strategic reason that now does not really exists.
In fact the date Turkey took from the EU counsil as the beginning of negotiations was partly, in fact, an outcome of the pressure US exercised.
And don't forget that if Turkey joins the club the kind of relationship between Turkey and US must and will change.

 

Strategically Turkey would be a good to have as a jump-point into the Asian and Arab countries. Even though western countries are already sort of being allowed to use turkey as such, one could fear that they would only take ever so much.

A have some concerns about implementing Turkey into EU. 1st of all is their somewhat vague valuation of human lives and civil rights. Torture is still widely used, and accepted in Turkey, and even though they might try to hide this from their would be co-countries of EU, they really can't.
Another issue is that a vast (majority?) number of Turks are Muslims. I have nothing against a Turkish membership because of the Muslim popularity, but rather because they value a lot of things (especially in the above mentioned civil/human rights issue) differently from Europeans, and most western societies (North America).

When some (I think it was 12 or 15 ) eastern European countries recently joined the EU, it felt much more natural to me. After all we share history and culture in a way we don't and probably never will with the Turks.

I really don't know fer sure yet, wether I support a Turkish membership or not. But if they do join, I do not think it would be anytime soon. There's simply too many political parties in EU that are against giving membership to Turkey.

 

Actually, the only thing, that has changed, is that the failure of the EU constitution has forced many european leaders, who were positive or neutral towards a full turkish membership, to change their stance and become more sceptical or even negative.

Also, the Cyprus issue has become a powerful weapon for those who don't support the full turkish membership. The turkish refusal to recognise the Republic of Cyprus has created a legal and a logical paradox (you can't ask to join an organization when you don't recognize one of its members) and has put Turkey or better the Turkish government in a dilemma, which is a lose-lose situation. If they don't recognize the Republic of Cyprus, they will never manage to gain a full membership and all the efforts they have made towards this direction will be in vain. If they recognize the Republic of Cyprus, they will see the total collapse of a policy, that they have followed for 30 years, and they will have to face a huge political unrest inside Turkey by the army and the nationalists. Also, the recognition doesn't give them the full membership because another paradox will be created, a country asks to join an organization when its army occupies territories of one of the member states and this will be the next weapon for those who don't want Turkey in EU.

 

I can't be doing with Turks.

 

Can't be doing WHAT with Turks, Barmy?

 

Most countries in Europe share a history with turks ( wars moustly ,at one point the turks oumost took Viena ) so this argument does not stand ,the turks have problems but if they will solve them why wodent they enter UE

 

I think that argument is just perfectly valid. While many European nations had - and, of course, continue to have - dealings of all sorts with Turkey, that hardly makes her a part of Europe's cultural sphere. Never mind all the other reasons standing against permittance of those loudmouths into our club.

 

My argument went on that we didn't share history with the Turks in the same way as the eastern European countries. I know that Turkey (or rather the Ottomans) gave Europe a lot of troubles, and occupied amongst others most of Spain once. But if you want to argue wether we share cultural history due to wars, then Europe share cultural history with the entire world. We have after all been in war with all of them. All the way from the Arab countries in the crusades of 1000-1300 a.d., and the explorers in 1400+ a.d....
Heck you can go back to the roman Empire as long back as ~1000 b.c. and find Europeans meddling in worlds affairs.

Also, you can draw parallels to modern day. America has been, and still is in war with many countries around the world. But that doesn't mean that they share historical cultural values with neither Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, or any other country on the oh so very long list of different countries...

[ September 02, 2005, 03:31: Message edited by: olimikrig ]

 

If it was not for the Ottomans, you would not have coffee

 

To be honest, I haven't picked up on any major changes through my normal news outlets (i.e. the BBC. My arguments remain the same as they did in the previous thread. Firstly the Cypriot thing needs to be resolved, which it won't without Turkey changing it's policy. Secondly, I need to be fully convinced that the country have reached the same standards of human rights as the rest of the EU. Free speech for example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4205708.stm

I don't see how US involvement changes anything from the EU prospective (Maybe from Turkey's) and I never accepted religious, geographical or economic reasons (which haven't changed anyhow) for forbidding entry.

 

I think that having Turkey as a member in the EU is important for the development of EU as well as the development of Turkey. Turkey is needed for religious solidarity to silence the ultra conservative christians who wish Europe to be a bastion of christianity. I'd assume this to be important for all the muslims in Europe too. Turkey is also needed for the workforce, the population of Europe is growing older and if we ever get even some kind of free movement of workers Turkish workforce will become very important for the European economy.

Then the problems. The failiure of the EU constitution is a symbol that the people are having difficulties in swallowing the first expansion and I think it's time to take it easy for a while and not to expand too fast and further feed the chaos in EU. Then there are also the problems with Cyprus and human rights. I think Turkey can manage to get their human right issues in control since I don't think they have any illusions about EU accepting them as members if they don't do so. Cyprus on the other hand has a lot of bad history between the Greek population and the Turkish population. I feel that ideal solution would be to unite Cyprus, but we're still very far from that happening. In the end for Turkish membership an solution will be necessary though.

If the problems are dealt with I think Turkey can be a member within ten years but if not then it will be bad all around. Turkey will not appreciate being tossed around like a tennisball between membership and nonmembership. No partial membership will in my opinion be possible.

 

Turkey is a secular country, so religion is not a problem, and they strictly enforce such views. Though they have abolished the death sentence recently, they have not carried out an execution for a very long time.

I think the Euro countries that don't like Turkey have a lot of Kurdish residents, as their passports say Turkish, rather than Kurdish. Ireland has a large Turkish and Kurdish population, and there is distinct differences between the two.

 

And for that I hail them

 

They also introduced peaches, almonds, most sweets, and were among the major proponents of sanitation. So frankly, they might have contributed more to "European" culture than many others.
Frankly, I don't believe religion will be such a big issue as Turkey is a fairly secular country. If they resolve their issues with the Kurds and Cyprus, I don't think there's such a big problem accepting them in the EU. Besides, Turkey has already made some concessions, if it continues to be held at the door and then finally shown the middle finger that might turn many Turks to radical and anti-European sentiments.

 

Well when America will have 1000 years of continuous occupation of Iraq there will probably be some cultural exchange ,the only reason why we dont have a much more comun culture is the fact theat turks did not tried to destroy a countries culture(did not tried very hard like some european countries )

[ September 06, 2005, 00:38: Message edited by: Incarnate ]

 

Actually, in few places they did. I invite you to come over in the Western (and Eastern, for that matter) Rhodopas.

 

Sorry, my brain is not working too well on a Friday afternoon. I couldn't quite grasp your meaning.
To you mean Tried or Trade? And I'm afraid I've no idea about acaparete, closest I can get to is incorporate (as in to include).