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| Europe |
| Turkey not yet ready for EU entry: Barroso |
| 2004-09-22 |
| It's the adultery. You can't be a real European without adultery. It just isn't done, y'know... Turkey is not yet ready for entry into the European Union, but the 25-nation bloc cannot reject Ankara's membership if it meets all the requirements, the incoming EU Commission chief said on Tuesday. "If Turkey responds positively to the criteria that have been established, I don't see how we could say no (to Turkish entry)," Jose Manuel Durao Barroso told the French newspaper Le Monde in an interview. Asked if Turkey was ready for membership he said: "No, not yet. It has made a great deal of progress, we recognise that, but as I speak to you now, not all the criteria have been met." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #19 The French pass the knife in Turkey's back to their lackey from Spain? |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-09-22 12:47:02 AM |
| #18 He is Portuguese, true. He is not a French lackey though, his appointment was a French diplomatic defeat. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-09-22 1:52:04 AM |
| #17 Sorry. Confused him with Shelley (Winters). |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-22 4:51:57 PM |
| #16 And as a sidenote, lex, Byron died of fever, not of drowning. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-09-22 4:49:13 PM |
| #15 Olá Tuga nah Greece is not so bad( Chile is better than them but Chile is an exeption in South America) but have a big chunk of communist/leftist nutcases. I still remember my father sad laught(he was in merchant navy) when some Greek asked about Otelo (a revolutionary guy that started a terrorist campaign and that in the days after our revolution said that all Fascists -for him that included even some people of socialist party must be put in stadiums and shot...) seems that Otelo was an hero for them... |
| Posted by: Anonymous6361 2004-09-22 4:20:38 PM |
| #14 Lex> Why the need to mention Greece? Did *I* mention Greece? Hmm? Your "Latin American" analogy is actually one I've considered myself and I find it quite fitting in more than one ways: For example Greece was indeed a place of instability during much of the 20th century, and eventually the victim of an American-supported dictatorial regime. Just like Latin America therefore, but unlike most of Western Europe, during the Cold War it experienced tyranny caused by its *own* side. That in turn boosted anti-Americanism, same as it was boosted in Latin America, to the point that currently Greece is probably the most anti-American nation in Europe. Another characteristic common between western European nations and Turkey and Russia (but not Greece) is that Greece was never an imperial power during the last half of the second millenium. Pretty much everyone else was, with the exception of Ireland and a handful other nations. But as concerns "vastly more important", I'm not sure you want to include importance in your list of European-only characteristics. And as for "corruption", we rate a bit better than Turkey. Given these stats: http://www.transparency.org/pressreleases_archive/2002/2002.08.28.cpi.en.html Greece gets a 4.2 (10 being the best), and Turkey gets a 3.2 http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/ Rafael> French Guyana, considered a fully integrated part of France, is part of the EU -- so yeah, and some of the islands in the Caribbean also: so yeah. You can also see them depicted in the Euro notes. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-09-22 4:16:51 PM |
| #13 No, that's where EU officials keep their (and their dentists') personal accounts. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-22 3:39:20 PM |
| #12 Parts of the Carribean are members of the EU, ain't that so? |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-09-22 3:35:36 PM |
| #11 Contemporary Greece is about as European as the average latin american kleptocracy. Turkey's at least as well managed, and vastly more important. Greece has more in common with Brazil or Nicaragua than with Europe: massive corruption, instability, incompetence and veering between clownish leftist and authoritarian military extremes. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-22 3:22:54 PM |
| #10 Any country that is in Europe has the right to be seriously considered for membership and in case they satisfy the Copenhagen criteria, negotiations can begin. For countries that aren't in Europe nobody can stop them from applying, and nobody can stop us from going "you are not European, buzz off". Morocco once applied, I believe. We quietly told them we were not interested, and they quietly withdrew it so as to save face. Turkey on the other hand has been already given official "candidate" status. That obliges the EU to atleast pretend to consider its application seriously, even if we end up rejecting her in the end. But don't be too quick to say what is European and what isn't. I think that right now Turkey is about as "European" as Russia or Ukraine or Belarus is, and possibly more so. Still the fact remains that it's the EU that isn't ready for Turkey yet. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-09-22 3:17:41 PM |
| #9 All the cool kids are in, and all the uncool kids want to become cool enough to enter Greeks haven't been cool since Byron drowned. Lusitanos (as Brazilians like to call them) have never been cool. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-22 3:15:54 PM |
| #8 Is there an EU rule that any country can apply? Micronesia? as long as they fulfill the 25 criteria? Turkey is not a European country, shares nothing at all in the European history of Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution. A much better plan would be to demand that Turkey respect the freedom of the Kurds, apologize for the Armenian genocide and pay compensation for it, and finally leave Cyprus alone (and take your Moslems back). That should be a nice start. |
| Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) 2004-09-22 3:01:12 PM |
| #7 Jack> But we are *not* yet having them as a member, and that's why they want to join us. We're the elite-only club in the block. All the cool kids are in, and all the uncool kids want to become cool enough to enter. :-) And yeah, Barroso was Prime Minister of Portugal -- he resigned from that post when he was given the post of the president of the EU commission. Currently the EU is Iberia-dominated -- given Barroso, Borrell and Solana. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-09-22 10:24:56 AM |
| #6 Once again, to paraphrase Groucho, why the hell would Turkey want to join any organization that would have them as a member? |
| Posted by: Jack is Back 2004-09-22 9:36:41 AM |
| #5 Hey Murat - how fortunate Turkey is to have friends like the EU. |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-09-22 9:12:27 AM |
| #4 Nice to see fellow portuguese in this site! OT: julgava que era o único tuga por aqui... |
| Posted by: tuga 2004-09-22 8:26:32 AM |
| #3 yeah he was our former premier, nothing Spanish in that name only Portuguese have words ended -ão OldSpook |
| Posted by: Anonymous6361 2004-09-22 2:04:58 AM |
| #2 I'm guessing that Kurdistan will get in before Turkey does |
| Posted by: 2B 2004-09-22 1:57:09 AM |
| #1 Isn't Durao Barroso a Portuguese name? |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-22 1:03:06 AM |