Turkey and the EU

Hi, i need help in answering these 7 questions. Although i am going to look them up myself, i would like to know other intellectual answers to these questions as well. If i can get all my facts straighten out i will have my material to write my essay .



1. Why does Turkey have interests in joining the European Union?

2. Why is it taking a long time for the EU to accept Turkey?

3. How are the European cultures and Turkish differ?

4. What is the standing relationship between Turkey and the Eu?

5. How will it affect the EU if Turkey joins it?

6. How will it affect the Middle East if Turkey joins the EU?

7. How will it help (or hurt) the EU if Turkey joins?

I tried to answer them to the best of my knowledge although some are just common talk done in cafes in Turkey about the topic.

1-) For economic reasons. As you might know, Turkey has been experiencing economic problems since the past decade, caused by terrorism, Gulf War emigrations, a few corrupt officials, and of course the Kurdish terrorism. As a result of these unfortunate events, the Turkish Republic does it's best to fix the economy and pay off the international debts.

2-) To tell you the truth, no one really knows. The reasons as believed by the Turkish people are that because Turkey is Islamic, Europe is Christian, also that there will be 70,000,000 more people to feed in the union . (Turkey first applied in the 1960s)

3-) Turkish is a mix between the nomadic, central asian culture and the Islamic culture brought by the convertion of the western Turkic peoples to Islam, while most of Europe is predominantly Catholic or Protestant, both being sects of Christianity.

4-) EU wants Turkey only because of the strenght of the Turkish Armed Forces (officially 3rd in the world after China and US). This would almost double the strenght of the current EU Armed Forces. Meanwhile, most European officials are kinda "choosy", this is where the US comes to be on the side of Turkey so it wouldn't adapt more "Eastern" policies for not being admitted into a union in the west.

5-) EU will be militarily greatly strenghtened, yet economically it might be negatively affected due to the many emigrations that would occur + the monetary aids given to the Turkish Republic in order to help it pay off its debts.

6-) This will influence Turkey to take up more "Western" ideologies on the events of the Middle East, which would mostly aid the US. Meanwhile, making both the powers of the Middle East officially American "followers".(Israel and Turkey)

7-) Same as question #5.

Hope it helped.

Edited by CamokaGurth