“We are not doubting the good faith of Mr. Erdogan, but to what extent can today’s and tomorrow’s governments make Turkish society embrace Europe’s human rights values?” Raffarin said.

While Raffarin raised the specter of a majority Islamic country infecting the EU’s secularism, other bourgeois politicians and pundits in Europe have argued that membership by Ankara in the EU would allow Muslims to predominate against “Christendom.” Many capitalist politicians in France, Germany, Austria, and other EU member countries have expressed similar views. In the European Union, only the British government, working together with Washington, has been campaigning adamantly for Ankara’s admission. (See also “‘Old Europe’ balks at accepting Turkey in European Union; British, U.S. rulers campaign for entry” in last week’s Militant.)

The strong opposition campaign against admitting Turkey notwithstanding, the European Union’s enlargement commissioner, Guenter Verheugen, said it is likely that Turkey will be given the green light to begin talks on joining the EU, according to a September 23 Reuters report. Verheugen made the announcement following a meeting with the Turkish prime minister. Erdogan gave assurances that Ankara would fully meet demands by the EU to reform its laws to meet the EU-prescribed guidelines.

On September 25, the Turkish parliament voted to amend its penal code along lines demanded by the EU, dropping an earlier amendment proposed by a faction of the ruling party to include a law criminalizing adultery.

Following the meeting with Erdogan, Verheugen told a news conference in Brussels that “no outstanding obstacles remained on the table.”

Verheugen’s commission is preparing a report due October 6 on Turkey’s membership in the EU. If the commission makes a favorable recommendation, the EU parliament would vote December 17 on whether to accept the proposal.

Even by the best estimates, the negotiations for Turkey to enter the EU could take up to 10 to 15 years. Turkey’s rulers have been trying to join the EU for 45 years. Their efforts began in 1959, when Ankara first applied for membership in what was then the European Economic Community, the EU’s forerunner. Its population of 67 million, largely Muslim, roughly equals the combined total of the 10 countries admitted to the EU in December 2002.

French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who lead the main governments in what U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has called “Old Europe,” are officially in favor of Turkish membership in the EU. But they have been noticeably restrained in the face of thinly veiled anti-Muslim agitation by their subordinates against Turkey.

Reuters reported, for example, that French European Parliament member Jacques Toubon told a news conference that he opposes even beginning talks on Turkey’s admittance to the EU because, “to bring Turkey into the European Union is not consistent with our concept of the European project and it is not good for Europe.” Toubon joined French finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy and the leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union in Germany in calling for a “special partnership” with Turkey instead of membership in the EU.

Toubon is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which is headed by Chirac. Reuters described Toubon as a Chirac ally. Distancing himself from the French president on the issue of Turkey’s admittance, Toubon said, “That’s him [Chirac] and this is me.”

Sarkozy is also a leader of the UMP and hopes to succeed Chirac as French president, said Reuters.

Sarkozy said September 27 that Ankara cannot be allowed to join the EU without a referendum in France on the matter. He told La Chaine Info television that his views were based on Turkey’s size, rather than the fact it is a Muslim country. “Turkey alone represents the equivalent of the entry of the 10 new eastern European countries combined—that’s quite something,” he said. “Turkey means 71 million inhabitants—looking ahead to 2050, it will be 100 million, and given the new voting rules in the constitution, it would be the country with the most votes.”

According to a recent poll published by the French daily Le Figaro, some 56 percent of adults in France oppose admitting Turkey to the European Union.

Prominent politicians in Denmark, among them prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, also threw cold water on the idea of beginning talks on Turkey’s membership in the EU. Rasmussen stressed that the reform package must not only be approved by Turkey’s parliament but “must be put into practice in Turkish society” before the talks could begin.

“It’s important not to go soft on the criteria right now,” added Gitte Seeburg, a leader of the conservative Christian Democrats in Netherlands, and a member of the EU parliament. While attending a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting in June in Ankara, U.S. president George Bush pressed for Turkey’s admittance to the EU. Chirac became furious in response to this remarks, accusing Bush of meddling in European affairs.

Turkey, a NATO member, has an army larger than any of the EU members and its military budget is exceeded only by Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. Turkey has blocked with Washington to prevent the imperialist governments of “Old Europe” from developing an EU military force that could be effective independently of U.S.-led and -dominated NATO.

The admittance of the Turkey, still a largely agricultural country, into the EU would also exacerbate one of the deepest conflicts within the European Union—the so-called Common Agricultural Policy. Under this policy, farm products of EU member states are subsidized. The subsidies primarily benefit large capitalist farmers. Big agribusiness dumps these cheap agricultural goods onto the markets of semicolonial countries, destroying the livelihoods of peasants in those countries. The ongoing debate over the extent and character of government farm subsidies that give a competitive edge to agricultural products from the strongest imperialist countries within the EU has led to sharp exchanges between London and Paris in particular. In one such clash, Chirac postponed a traditional end-of-the-year meeting with British prime minister Anthony Blair.

In 2002, the unequal application of the subsidy policy between the wealthy imperialist nations in the EU and the others became a stumbling block for 10 governments, mainly from eastern Europe, which had applied to join the EU but were told they would not receive the same subsidies as current members. They held out for a larger share and, in the end, accepted a package totaling $42 billion between 2004 and 2006. That amount was only 25 percent of what other member states are entitled to. Parity is not forthcoming until 2013, at best.  
 
 
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