Under normal conditions Janne, I’d say you were making a pretty safe bet. Ukraine could be in way before 2014. But these are not normal conditions: if France votes no I’d say all bets are off. We will have to see how far things go, but at this stage I wouldn’t even consider Bulgaria and Romania secure if the ‘local defeat’ turned into a rout.

Oh, sorry I changed the national id’s around a bit.

The point is that is pretty much the situation here in Catalunya where I live.

The point I am making I suppose is that you can’t dis-invent the internet and sattelite TV.

We live in a globalised world. You may not like this, thousands and millions may not like it, but it is a reality. And this reality is changing what we mean by community, what we mean by society.

I could make another change:

“We?ve got city quarters where you don?t need any Spanish to shop and buy anything.
We?ve got schools where 70-90% of the pupils don?t speak Spanish outside of the school.
We?ve got German newspapers and TV channels so they don?t need to watch any Spanish news.”

And where would I be talking about: Mallorca.

The local press and tv stations are full of these kind of complaints.

Well, my reality principle tells me we need to start to learn to accept that this can happen.

On the question of adolescence, my experience here in Barcelona has taught me that this is really the worst age for this kind of intollerance. And that you can’t draw conclusions from the values people hold during adolesence, as to what their civic values will be later.

Perhaps the greatest defect of the ‘European Project’ is that we don’t share a common language: it might even be one which proves fatal.

Clearly if we had one common language, immigrants arriving from all over the globe would tend to learn that language. This is why, despite the demographics, I doubt the US will ever become Spanish speaking.

I say it might prove fatal since, at the end of the day I tend to agree with Herder: the language we use is an enormous filter which organises the way we see things to a much greater extent than we normally recognise.

I understand your concerns, even if I don’t look at these things in quite the same way you do.

OTOH if someone like yourself, who thinks about these things, and is open to argument, has reached these conclusions, then we can imagine that there are many, many more people in Germany who will have given this much less thought, and reached much stronger conclusions. Which leads me to once more agree that “you can only push people so far”, and that we all need to be well aware of this.

If you accelerate processes too rapidly, you run the risk that the vehicle falls apart.

Certain things will become a little clearer in this regard after 29 May I suspect.

But if European voters are going to decide to become less than enthusiastic about the EU as a process, I am still left with the issue of what is going to happen about the euro.

That seems to be another problem.
And I might be totally wrong here, I?m certainly not an expert!

AFAIK EU rules would actually call for a relaxation of the fiercely Ataturk secular rules.
(Of course the secular Western European states don?t have that religious problem so they might underestimate the power of a religious movement.)

Likewise the rule that minorities should be protected.

Turkish history is different.
He also stressed that secularism was the driving force of Turkey’s democracy, and that the Turkish state must remain an indivisible whole.”

Just short snippets about the topics followed by comments.

“But I wonder if the opinion of the people/voters inside the EU doesn?t count for anything?”

I accept the validity of this point, although perhaps not in the way you wish to use it.

Let?s talk about Germany here.
My main problem is that the German government doesn?t try to discuss the topics and convince the voters of the supposed advantages.

That?s why I said:
“You can only push people so far”.

It?s not a point especially about Turkey or about the new EU constitution. It?s a point about national politicians not trying to actually convince their voters but trying to treat them as unruly children.

See this “Der Spiegel” article (in English) for this tactic:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,355485,00.html

“Enlargement is good for the economy”.

This is undoudtedly true on sound economic theory grounds. If the current enlargement to the East isn’t being seen as clearly advantageous in Germany, then this reflects other problems which need to be addressed inside Germany.

Oh we do see the advantages!
But right now the people and the media see published disadvantages too.
Germany (for now) only has a minimal wage for construction workers.
(ALthough the German government wants to change that.)
So we?re seeing problems with workers from EU Eastern Europe.

For example Polish butchers in German slaughterhouses:
http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2005/03/05/406810.html
(in German)
I admit only a “small” problem but with enough headlines in the tabloid press…:)

The problem is that the government is only reacting to some of these problems. They didn?t think about it beforehand. That leads to mistrust to any further government actions concerning the EU.

“Just look at the budget “talks”. Who pays and who gets how much money?”

Actually I am sympathetic to this view. I live in Spain, and see no good reason why Spain should continue to receive money whilst Germany is to be penalised for excessive fiscal deficits etc.

IIRC correctly a few weeks ago British papers published articles about a new economic paper saying that Great Britain would become the biggest economy in the EU sometime in the next decades.
Reading that I wanted to ask them why they still needed their rebate then?
Newspapers today report that Great Britain is totally opposed to any discussion about their rebate.

NO single country will come forward and say that they don?t need the EU money.
Neither Spain, Ireland, Great Britain, France or anyone else.

We don?t have a “EU culture” endorsing the “common good” of the EU. We do have a culture where any country is trying to get as much money out of the EU as they can.
So we do have a money problem.

“Who?s gonna pay for a Turkey inside the EU?
What about the right of residence and work anywhere in the EU?
When we already have problems with low-wage workers from Eastern Europe?”

This is the part of your comment I least agree with.

I don’t think anyone is going to ‘pay’ for Turkey. Structural funds are a two way street (agricultural issues are something else, but then this whole bag of worms needs substantial revision Turkey apart: IMHO).

Well, let?s look at the structural funds then.
Some time ago one commenter over at DKos asked about EU structural funds money for Ireland.
It was a two digit billion dollar number.
(And some media reports suggest that Ireland isn?t quite happy at becoming a net payer instead on a net receiver of money.)

Now Turkey is a bit larger than Ireland.
With a larger population.
How much money will be needed for their infrastructure?

Not to mention the whole of Eastern Europe.
It?s a huge task!
And as I see it, the EU either
- needs a lot more money to meet expectations or
- has to explain to the new members why they will get less help and money.

Also you are ducking the big question. Germany is getting old, Turkey is young. Ten years from now you will need this input of young people to help fill the needs of your job market (if you don’t take it as a ‘done deal’ that German can do nothing to reverse ten years of stganation, and that you will still need a dynamic labour market in the future).

Actually no!
I try to be open about it but I admit that I?m worried about it.
The problem is integration.
And it?s a problem in Germany right now.
It?s not happening…
At least not on a large scale.

We?ve got city quarters where you don?t need any German to shop and buy anything.
We?ve got schools where 70-90% of the pupils don?t speak German outside of the school.
(Meaning that these kids have real problems just to finish school and get a job.)
We?ve got Turkish newspapers and TV channels so they don?t need to watch any German news.
We?ve had a German school principal (in Berlin IIRC) overhearing some (Turkish) kids saying that the honour killing of a daughter was all right because “she dressed like a German”.

And that?s with 2-3 million Turkish people in Germany now. We might have a chance to integrate them given time and effort (and education!).
With right of movement and residency 10-15 years from now, I?m not so sure.

Lastly, you seem to be thinking about *now*. We are talking really about 2014. By this time Turkey will be nothing like as poor as it is now. For the last three years Turkey has enjoyed one of the fastest growing economies in the european ambit. It is a global ‘growth champion’. My feeling is that come the time Turkey won’t enter froma position of weakness, but from a position of strength.

That may be. I for one would welcome it.
But I?m sceptical.
The population is still growing and the economic growth is limited to some regions IIRC.

This of course really would be the biscuit: a French ‘no’ to the Constitution and then a ‘no’ to Turkey. So what will happen to those little pieces of paper being used as currency in France, the ‘euros’.

“the population of its constituent countries finds it difficult to influence policy. There are too many levels of abstraction”.

I mean I’m sure Hector is right here. This was also the substance of the original comments.

But we have what we have, we live in a second best world, and what will be the consequences of throwing caution to the wind, creating institutional gridlock and destroying confidence (vis a vis Turkey) that we are able to follow through on decisions.

Or don’t we already have enough problems with the growth and stability pact?

That said even the best efforts can be thrown to the wind by a referendum, as may prove the case with the Constitution. ….. Chirac has promised the French people a referendum on Turkey and I’m sure that “Sarko”, if he wins the Presidency, will not backtrack on that promise; it isn’t just in Turkey that “vested interests and resistance to cultural change” are a problem.

Problems in Turkey:

(1) Turkey wants to retain the right to invade and possibly occupy its neighbors on fairly slim grounds: see Cyprus, Iraq, and even threats in that direction toward Syria. This doesn’t even mention the stranglehold Turkey has on Armenia, because they can never forgive the Armenians for the Armenian genocide. This kind of foreign policy posture is not something the EU can tolerate or handle, and it will have to change. But even now, the Turkish military regularly threatens to invade Iraq if in that country Kurds get effective control of Kirkuk. Think about this - it would be equivalent to France threatening to invade Spain if Basques parties got complete control of Navarre. We’re not even mentioning the continuing Turkish occupation of another EU state.

(2) Turkey wants to retain blatantly discriminatory practices toward religious and ethnic minorities that are incompatible with European law and custom. See the treatment of the Kurds and Armenians, and the state control of religious structures of the Orthodox.

(3) Turkey wants to maintain a blatantly ahistorical proto-fasicst cult of personality of Ataturk that is not compatible with European law and custom. This is also related to points (1) and (2).

(4) Turks are inculcated from birth to believe in an international conspiracy to break up the country that feeds paramoia and militarism.

Of course, the EU also has problems here.

(1) The EU is profoundly undemocratic, in that the population of its constituent countries finds it difficult to influence policy. There are too many levels of abstraction.

(2) A significant number of Europeans do not want to see a large Muslim country join the European Union.

(3) There’s a lot of wooly-headed talk about the EU “needing” Turkey, which leads people to attempt to override or pressure other people in unhelpful ways.

Of course, it would be a great boon for Turkish citizens to be living in a country that followed the rule of law, respected human rights, and was part of a European customs union.

But there’s a long way to go yet, and people shouldn’t kid themselves. After all, Spain and Greece still haven’t completely shaken off the years of the dictatorships.

Actually maybe some help is on the way here:

“The proposed compromise includes: Cutting about ?50bn off the commission’s plans to raise EU competitiveness. Cutting about ?40bn from the regional aid budget, with the pain shared between new EU members in eastern Europe and “old” member states. Capping Britain’s budget rebate. Limiting the big net contributions of Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, possibly by putting a ceiling on payments based on VAT revenues.”

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/caf93f5e-c7cd-11d9-9765-00000e2511c8.html