A cynical comedy that is likely to end in ironic tragedy
An elaborate farce will be played out in Luxembourg tomorrow. Barring a last-minute diplomatic hitch, Turkey will formally begin the process of accession to the European Union. Politicians from around Europe will make speeches about how much the EU will gain from Turkish membership and vice versa. But few of them will believe what they are saying.Indeed, almost the only people who are taking the EU at its word are the Turks themselves. Unaccustomed to the way of doing business in Brussels, they innocently believe the promise made by the existing members last December that Turkey would be admitted once it had met certain criteria. Since then, the EU has been shaken by the French and Dutch No votes on the constitution - results that the Eurocrats blame chiefly on anti-Turkish feeling. France and Austria have responded by promising to hold referendums on Turkish membership. Seventy per cent of Frenchmen and 80 per cent of Austrians plan to vote No, and it takes only one veto to block the application. My friend's European outlook is not surprising: like many Turks, his ancestors had fled the Balkans with the Ottoman janissaries. As we spoke, I kept thinking how much more urbane he and his colleagues were than many of the MEPs already here. Spend a day in Strasbourg and you will come across religious fundamentalists, unapologetic Stalinists, nutty monarchist parties. You will find fascists, indicted criminals, apologists for the IRA. Yet these same MEPs presume to treat the Turks like half-civilised brutes.
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