Turkey in the EU? No thanks

Geoffrey Wheatcroft criticises David Miliband for claiming that Turkish EU membership would build a bridge between Europe and western Asia. Wheatcroft lays out some differences in Turkish political culture, and the economic issues that would arise from "adding a country with a per capita income not much more than one-tenth that of the UK's - and which will, moreover, soon be more populous than Germany". It would, he says, threaten the very being of the EU.

Now there are other threats to the "very being" of the EU. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, for instance, writes that

On the break-up of the euro -- as the Latin and Germanic blocs pull further apart -- I stand by my position. These fissures take a long time to do their damage. The Spanish property bubble has begun to deflate, and Italy’s growth was just 0.1pc in the second quarter, not far off recession. I imagine it will take another two to three years for this to unfold.

But regarding Turkey, Wheatcroft does not see the greatest difficulty as economic, religious, cultural or geographic. It is political. "That means not the politics of Turkey but of Europe."

For all its very great achievements, the besetting weakness of the EU has always been its undemocratic character, with political and administrative elites dragging a recalcitrant populace behind them. Deals agreed by the elites are regularly rejected by the mere voters (Maastricht by the Danes, Nice by the Irish, the constitution by the French and Dutch) until they are told to go back to vote again until they get it right.

And this applies to the question of Turkish accession.

Contrast the zeal for accession expressed by the foreign secretary, Mr Blair and various German and Spanish politicians with polls in which barely one-fifth of ordinary Europeans say that they want Turkey to join. It might be an idea to start by building another bridge - within Europe, between rulers and ruled.

Let's take Mr Wheatcroft's argument further. David Miliband is emerging as outstandingly silly, even for a Foreign Secretary. Not only does he claim to favour Turkish accession. He maintains that the new constitutional treaty is nothing like the rejected constitutional treaty (which conveniently means we needn't have a referendum). Well, let's be charitable and allow that he knows this for the lie it is. But he does believe that the EU should re-invent itself as a combatant against global warming - upon which he claims there is a scientific consensus.

Just maybe these EU politicians know Turkey does not have a hope in hell of joining the EU, and therefore making supportive noises is a cost-free way of getting some goodwill. Maybe they themselves don't even favour Turkish accession.

On the other hand, such a daft notion as Turkish accession does seem well within the compass of Mr Miliband.