More- should Turkey join the EU???

Austria does not agree with Turkish EU membership. What is the view of Greece on this topic?
I would like to see Turkey prosper but I do not know if EU membership is good for Turkey and Europe. I think Austria's solution might be better than nothing at all and given time things could change. Give them privileged partner status instead of membership but keep things open for the future.
Like in America, I tend to think the elite in Europe want this because of the cheap labor that will flood into Europe. Europe's population is on the decline and they need workers. I cannot blame the poor of Turkey for wanting a better opportunity in life but Europeans should protect their borders, lanugae and culture by limiting immigration but that is for another thread.

EU's turkey row 'threatens relations with Islam'
01/10/2005 - 10:13:41 The West�s relations with Islam will be seriously damaged if Turkey�s application to join the European Union is blocked, former EU external affairs commissioner Lord Patten warned today.

The West�s relations with Islam will be seriously damaged if Turkey�s application to join the European Union is blocked, former EU external affairs commissioner Lord Patten warned today.

Formal accession talks with the Turkish government are due to open on Thursday, but the process has been thrown into disarray after Austria said that it should not be granted full membership.

The Austrians instead suggested that it should be awarded the status of �privileged partner�.

The move prompted a furious response from Ankara, where the Turkish government warned that it would walk out of the talks if all that was on offer was second class membership.

EU foreign ministers are due to meet in emergency session tomorrow to try to resolve the crisis.

Lord Patten described the Austrians� behaviour as �lamentable�. He said that if the negotiations did break down, it would have a serious impact both within the EU and on the world beyond.

�The impact of the West�s relationship with Islam if we turn down Turkey�s accession, even after Turkey has carried through reforms, mostly on the visceral grounds that we are the relics of Christian civilisation and they�re Islamic - and that�s how it would play in the Islamic world � then that would have very bad implications,� he told BBC Radio 4�s Today programme.

�You hear so much rhetoric about Europe playing a significant role in the world. What the hell signal do we send to the rest of the world if we can�t accept Turkish accession to the European Union?

�To define Europe today as though it were an introverted, cohesive, medieval Christian community is, I think, terrible, and it sends not only awful messages outside, but it actually sends some pretty dubious messages to the 12 million or more Muslims who live within the European Union.�

While Britain has been a strong supporter of Turkish accession, Lord Patten acknowledged that elsewhere in the EU there was growing popular opposition to the idea.
However he said that it was up to EU leaders to face down their critics.

�I don�t doubt at all that people are going to have to confront xenophobia in some European countries if we are going to win this argument. Of course they are. But it is a time, in my judgment, for a bit of leadership,� he said.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=157692866&p=y576 9357z

I also want Turkey to join EU. It would be better for Turkey as a country and for Kurds too. We need our minority rights!

Turkey must show the world that it is possible to structure a truly democratic, westernized nation based on fundamental Islamic principles.

I disagree. I think Turkey should be %100 secular, not "democratic Islamic" or "moderate Islamic".

What is those "Islamic principles" anyway?

Edited by Barış

There are several diferent problems here:

• The most important one has nothing to do with Turkey, it is internal of EU: what kind of EU will we have? A mere free market area or a confederacy. This problem is not solved but must be solved and is an obstacle to further ampliation.
• Other problem is the cultural one: both Europes the religious one and the agnostic one (dominant nowadays) are reluctant of Islam. It would affect any other ferviently Muslim country.
  
• Another important problem is the democratic quality of the state. EU is not supposed to tolerate human right violations within its borders, though often does anyhow. There's something of double standards here: though no EU country has so frequent and blatant denounces as Turkey, France, Spain, Britain and others are close.Yet in no EU state, including France, are ethnical minorities treated so badly as in Turkey.
• And finally it is the economical problem: Turkey is much poorer than the poorest EU member (Poland?) and has 70 million people, many willing to emigrate. This can be cause of concern, but anyhow, I don't think it is the main problem.
  
• Finally, Cyprus can veto Turkey's entrance. Turkey is not just not recognizing Cyprus but actually it is boycotting it against the commercial agreements with EU. If it does that when is not a member, what will do when it is and has full rights?
  

I think the main problem, anyhow, lays in what kind of EU we want: if just a free market, Turkey, once reformed, could fit well there; if we want a confederation, Turkey could fit as well, but I'm not sure that Turks would want that kind of incorporation. Personally I think that EU must solve its own internal problems by implementing the Europe of two speeds: leaving a free market area for countries like Britain that do not want further integration and creating a true European Union with full confederal institutions for the willing Europaist states. Turkey will then decide where it wants to fit in and the members will decide if it fits in.