[IdeaHamster]

There's an interesting extension of this line of thought. My sister-in-law works in Istanbul for a Greek company. She says that most of the actual profit-generating work done for this company is done in Romania or Turkey. The Greek offices, from what she describes, are more or less completely dysfunctional.

Now, take that insight of conditions on the ground along with a chart of the growth of the Greek vs Turkish economies over the last decade, and then ask yourself: why is Greece a full EU member and included in the Eurozone, while Turkey's membership negotiations have completely stalled (and will probably conclude with Turkey not joining the EU)?

Can you imagine a world where Greece is allowed to leave the Euro, massively devalue its debt (and take the decade or more of restructuring/rebuilding its economy that would come with that), and Turkey with its strong manufacturing sector and youthful, growing middle class is brought in in Greece's place? The EU and the Euro would be in a far stronger position...but it will never happen. Unfortunately, European cultural prejudices are still to ever-present and will result in Greece continuing to be dragged along while Turkey gets shunned.

[jfruh]

Human rights are a factor, plus there's the fact that Turkey is a Muslim country, though many in the EU won't admit that. But even that could probably be overlooked if not for the fact that Turkey is a huge country. With a population of 73 million people (and a growing population, whereas many European states are stagnant in this regard), Turkey would immediately become the second-largest EU state, which means more members of the EU parliament than France or the UK and more voting power in those institutions where countries vote by weighted population.

If Turkey were a Muslim country with a European toehold and a history of dodgy human rights abuses but a general trendline towards democracy and it had a population of about 10 million, the EU would be falling all over itself to admit it and show how enlightened it was.

[jules]

Some Turks joke that the Turkish army has the largest gay porn collection in the world.

According to a Turkish friend of mine, yours is not an accurate characterization of Turkey. There are still huge problems with democracy, power of the army, corruption, media controlled by people in power, torture, Cyprus, and more. According to him many of these things are worsening -- he is afraid that Turkey is going to go further in the direction of Syria instead of the EU. Telling is the 6 month compulsory military service for all men, except gay men, who are barred from military service and are considered to have a disease in need of treatment by the minister of family affairs. Those who follow the rules (and choose safety over the risk of rape and violence) and disclose that they're gay are asked to supply photographic evidence of enjoyment of being penetrated as proof (being exclusively the active sexual partner is not considered gay). The less lucky have to undergo a rectal medical exam. Additionally on the point of censorship: gay organisations' web sites are being blocked by the government.

Despite improvements in the economy Turkey is not yet fit for joining the EU. Sadly "stuff like the acceptance of evolution" (see below) is one of the least of the concerns.

[jfruh]

I am not at all trying to minimize Turkey's real problems. But many of the Eastern European EU states also have some of the same or similar problems (particularly Romania and Bulgaria). In their cases much of the reason given for admitting them to the EU was that membership would bring them closer to European norms. (Indeed, this is an incentive held out by those in Europe who favor Turkish EU membership.)

My point is that all these problems would be easier to ignore or fix if Turkey had 10 million people. At 70 million, they'd have such a strong voice in EU institutions that they'd be as likely to change the EU as vice versa.

[_delirium]

I agree the population size is a huge part of the problem, though I think it has more to do with immigration worries than voting-in-EU-institutions worries. There was already a bunch of nationalist ire over the proverbial "Polish plumbers" flooding western Europe and undercutting local labor, once they were fully admitted to the EU with free movement of labor. The prospect of 70 million Turks having the right to move to any city in Europe is much more unpopular than that (and good fodder for anti-immigrant populist parties), because there's more of them, they're poorer, and they're perceived as more foreign. If it were 10 million Turks, there might be more of a chance of getting people to agree.

[coldarchon]

you DO understand their population is huge BECAUSE of islam? At the beginning of the last century they WERE 10 million Turks.

[VladRussian]

yep, what GP called "European cultural prejudices" is just a thousand year of direct experience and knowledge that the gradient of how wild and barbaric things become grows when one moves from inside the Europe through East/South Europe toward Russia/Turkey (i need to hand it to Turkey though - "photographic evidence of enjoyment of being penetrated as proof (being exclusively the active sexual partner is not considered gay)" beats a lot of what i could say about my old country :)

[wnight]

IMHO the answer is to show Turkey what they're missing. Open our borders (Canadian specifically, but all ideally) to their mistreated (and those from everywhere else) and let them live happy productive lives.

Accelerate the brain-drain until nothing but the dictator is left, then go back and take over.

[beachgeek]

Wait, you need to take a prostrate exam to join the Turkish Army? WTH?

[tftfmacedo]

Regarding Turkey negotiations, I guess you know why.

Human rights issues ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Turkey ), Cyprus, death penalty.

[abollaert]

The cynic in me sometimes wonders if this argument is used as a red herring, and that there are other issues that need sorting out (involving money and control).

[Atropos]

Of course there are control issues as well, turkey has 73 million population and so would instantly be the 2nd largest voting bloc, very likely to become the biggest due to demographics in the future. It would make sense to have a much stricter standard for accepting large than tiny countries as new members.

[gahahaha]

Turkey has grown strongly lately, but GDP/Capita is still 1/3 of Greece and 1/5 of Germany. I wish them all the best, but they are still a quite poor country. (and if you look at stuff like the acceptance of evolution (extremely low), an argument could be made that they are quite backwards too)

[coldarchon]

not to forget their inflation rate is always twice as high as their economic growth ..