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Turkish entry would be end of old EU

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  • Turkish entry would be end of old EU

    Turkish entry would be end of old EU
    By Paul Taylor

    Dawn, Pakistan
    Dec 7 2004

    BRUSSELS: Where does Europe end and should the European Union go
    on expanding indefinitely? That is one key argument of opponents
    of Turkey's bid to win agreement next week to open European Union
    membership talks.

    While Turkey's supporters see an opportunity to extend the EU's mantle
    of stability and prosperity to a dynamic Muslim democracy and Nato
    ally, adversaries fear the 25-nation grouping will over-extend itself
    and choke on such a giant morsel.

    They see a precedent that will change the EU from a close-knit
    community into an unwieldy "regional United Nations" sprawling into
    central Asia and North Africa. If the EU says "yes" to Turkey, how
    could it say "no" to Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and eventually
    Russia and Morocco, the critics ask.

    "Turkey is an Asian country with a small bridgehead in Europe, with
    the elite looking to Europe ... but the vast majority rooted in Asia,"
    former EU farm chief Franz Fischler said in a letter to his colleagues
    this year.

    The EU would be unable to sustain its two main spending policies,
    agricultural support and regional development aid, even if Turkish
    membership were phased in over a decade, and it would open "a geo
    strategic Pandora's box", the Austrian warned.

    The man who drafted the EU constitution, former French President
    Valery Giscard d'Estaing, was even more blunt. Turkey was not
    geographically or culturally European, and its accession would be
    "the end of the European Union", Giscard told the French daily Le
    Monde in November 2002.

    Furthermore, those pushing Turkish membership most strongly were the
    enemies of European integration, Giscard asserted - a reference to
    Britain and the United States. Rising French political star Nicolas
    Sarkozy, leader of the ruling UMP party, last month rejected Turkish
    entry and said the indefinite expansion of the EU was "an American
    vision".

    DIFFERENT EUROPE: Turkish accession in a decade or so would certainly
    create a very different EU, shifting the balance of power still
    further away from its original Franco-German axis - hence French alarm.

    By the time it joined, Turkey would be the most populous nation
    in the EU, overtaking Germany's 80 million. That would give it the
    most voting power under the largely population-based voting system
    established by the constitution, and the biggest block of seats in
    the European Parliament.

    The EU would no longer be able to afford to subsidise farmers and poor
    regions on the current scale. To some critics, notably in France,
    that would reduce it to a vast free trade area with little or no
    redistribution of wealth.

    Countries such as Britain and Sweden make little secret of their
    delight at such a prospect. Turkey's supporters argue that the EU is
    already evolving with the admission of 10 mainly poor east European
    countries this year, and its farm and regional policies will have to
    change anyway due to world trade talks and budget constraints.

    They also argue that the accession of a country with a surplus of
    eager young workers could boost Europe's dwindling, ageing workforce
    and help defuse a looming pensions crisis.

    But European Commission economists say an influx of Turkish labour,
    likely to be long delayed by transition arrangements, would do little
    to ease the pensions shortfall.

    Then there is the cultural argument - a euphemism for religion in
    some eyes, or for a history of enmity in others. Dutch former EU
    commissioner Frits Bolkestein articulated an often unspoken fear of
    Europe being overrun by Islam.

    In a speech in September, he suggested that Ankara's accesion would
    reverse the 1683 defeat of the Turks at the gates of Vienna, which
    marked the limit of the westward expansion of the Ottoman empire
    in Europe.

    Jean-Louis Bour langes, a centre-right French member of the European
    Parliament and leading European federalist, said the EU's extension
    into eastern Europe was a natural reunification with "the kidnapped
    east". But admitting Turkey would be quite different.

    "(Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip) Erdogan says the EU should be
    a crossroads of civilizations. We consider it is the home of a
    civilization. European identity shouldn't be a department store,"
    Bourlanges said.
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