Thread: Last Days of Europe Swiftly Approaching

EU Wants to Speed up Membership Talks with Turkey

The European Union's Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has announced he wants to speed up negotations with Turkey over joining the EU. Center-right politicians in France and Germany have predictably denounced the move.

Turkey's desire to join the European Union is fiercely opposed in some political quarters in Europe. So, it was hardly much of a surprise when conservative politicians in Germany and France strongly criticized the EU for wanting to speed up negotiations with Turkey over joining the European club.

Olli Rehn, the EU's enlargement commissioner, told a German newspaper that the European Union was planning to open up negotiations with Turkey concerning business law and intellectual property in June. In an interview with the conservative Die Welt, published on Monday, Rehn said Turkey might be able to join the EU within 15 years. "Before it can join, the country still has a long way to go. I expect that Turkey could become an EU member in 10 to 15 years, if it contiunes to pursue its reform path."

According to Rehn, Turkey had entered the "most critical" period of its membership negotiations, since they commenced in 2005. He said the EU expected Turkey to continue on its current path of introducing reforms. "We expect freedom of speech for all," he said. "We expect that the rights of women and minorities are protected."

In the interview, Rehn announced that two more chapters out of the 35-chapter accession package were likely to be opened as soon as June. In the second half of the year, he added, further negotations would be opened, for example on energy issues.

The announcement drew sharp criticizm from conservative politicians in Germany and France, who oppose Turkish membership of the EU.

Peter Ramsauer, leader of Germany's Christian Social Union's (CSU) parliamentary group, said the commission's strategy was clear. "They want to push the negotiations through, until there is no way back," he told the German news agency DPA. In France, Richard Mallié, a member of the ruling center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), said in a statement that the commission's "encouragement" to Turkey was "scandalous."

Mallié leads a group of French parliamentarians who oppose Turkey joining the EU, preferring -- just like France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- to offer it a privileged partnership.

A similar view was expressed by Austria's Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik during a news conference in Turkey's capital Ankara on Monday. She told reporters that Turkey should consider a tie-up with the EU short of full membership. "The doors should not be closed on Turkey, we need negotiations to explore the exact contours of our relations," Plassnik told reporters. "I could imagine a tailor-made Turkish-European community as another rational, realistic alternative."

The EU opened membership talks with Turkey in 2005, but negotations have been hampered by disagreements over Cyprus and opposition from member countries, such as France and Austria. In the past three years Turkey has fulfilled some of the EU demands, including abolishing the death penalty and allowing the Kurdish language to be used in schools and broadcasts.

However, the European Parliament on Monday urged Turkey to speed up its reforms. The parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee issued an almost unanimous non-binding resolution that called on Turkey to improve freedom of speech and press freedom (more...), as well as offer better protection to ethnic and religious minorities. The parliamentarians also expressed concern over moves by Turkey's chief prosecutor to shut down the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). (more...) The party, which has roots in political Islam, is being accused of trying to scrap the secular principles on which the state was founded.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 90,00.html

and the walls of Jericho come tumbling down

Dooms Day is 2050....for Europe and America. Turkey's inclusion in the EU will solidify this. Once open access for Turkey's population into all of EU member-nations is complete, Europe will be doomed to a Muslim majority by mid-century.

Its good to see politicians in Europe that are fighting this, and at least putting off the inclusion of Turkey into the EU. What I can not understand is WHY the US government is prodding Western European nations to accept Turkey into the EU.....What is in it for them?? Is it that the European economies will collapse, and that combined with relatively friendly trade laws enable more access to cheap labor in relatively open economies? Is it just a desire to spread world government? Is it both?

PS Lugundum Pat Buchanan has another book coming out next month. It is a history book, which gives a very different outlook on WWII. Basically calling it an uneccessary war. I think you and fellow Europeans might find it VERY interesting. Basically he is saying that this war contributed to the death of the West, expanding on this running thesis of the fall of Western Civilization.

Originally Posted by BearFlagRepublic

What I can not understand is WHY the US government is prodding Western European nations to accept Turkey into the EU.....What is in it for them??

One motivation of America's support for Turkey is done in the hopes to placate them and keep Turkey from invading the northern border of Iraq. There are high tensions with the native Kurds there, and Turkey has already shelled several targets in northern Iraq. If Turkey crossed the border into Iraq, that would be severely problematic to our reconstruction efforts, to say the least.

Also, induction into the EU is an attempt to shore up support in a country that is cooling toward NATO, while simultaneously warming toward Iran. This is going to backfire over the long run, of course, as you mentioned with 2050.

Ultimately, this stuff just comes with the territory when we have all these foreign alliances and obligations to tend to. Basically providing an army for Europe since WWII has left us with extremely weak allies, as the Bosnia campaigns highlighted. I remember that German guy resigning over Europe's inability to stop that war in the early 90s. I also believe this European sense of weakness was the ultimate reason to form the EU in the first place. We all lose with our current arrangement - it's just unintended consequences at work.

To have a truly good defense you need strong allies, and right now the U.S. doesn't encourage that. We throw around money and favors to get our way now. We're running out of these resources quickly, while engaging in strategically unwise activities, like supporting Turkey for EU membership. Like many other things in this country, the abyss looms.

Doomsday is in 2016 according to Nostradamos..but then again, he's just an old drunken geiser who probably saw double his whole life.

My theorys is the old rich families or the world, including the arabs are using islam to bring us all under subjection . After this is accomplished and the world population is reduced, then they will call off the muslim armies and set up their own satanic religion .

OR ! The Roman Catholic Church will revise the Roman Empire . There will be a world war soon stirred up by radical muslims and these elites will create another 'Crusade' .

I don't think the west are the only ones involved in a conspiracy if there is one . They havem't left any logical thinking person any other explanation .

I will never believe that the western europeans are alone in the destruction of freedoms all over the world. Those like Buccanon, Paul and Carter are foolish to keep saying it .

I'm not a jew ,but I do believe that Israel is sacred and those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed . This is what I 'understand' the Bible says .

I guess the EU does not have enough radical muslims destroying their country so they need to ensure the job is complete by allowing Turkey to join the club.