It's a confluence of multiple factors including Turkey didn't want to carry low performers in the Euro while it was booming, plus a lack of willingness to harmonize with European practices, laws, and standards. Maybe 5-10% of it was racism, but not necessarily a major factor.
Turkey's GDP per capita is a lot lower than that of the EU. A lot of the EU accession talks stalled around human rights and recognition of Cyprus which was an existing EU member. Of course Austria did not want them in - but unless fundamental changes were made with respect to the two things above accession talks would have stalled regardless.
Turkey sits right at the access point between EU and all the Central Asian countries with a lot of oil. This made Turkey an "attractive" nation for the EU economically. Socially though they just are not there.
Here’s the timeline: Turkey got stamped as an EU candidate at the Helsinki summit in December 1999, while the southern Cyprus didn’t hop into the Union until May 2004.
That five-year gap tells you Cyprus couldn’t have been the first roadblock for Turkey’s talks; the island only became an issue once it was already inside the club.
When Turkey finally sat down for formal accession talks in October 2005, the Cyprus dispute had wrapped itself around every single chapter, turning a one-on-one quarrel into a full-blown EU-level veto.
Turkey doesn't even recognize Cyprus, an EU member. It will be braindead for Cyprus to not veto Turkey. Saying Turkey was "close" to join EU is a really long stretch.
Yep. Lots of hurdles. Turkey needed to grow up in some ways and was closer to getting there 10-15 years ago, but it actually regressed in some ways under Erdoğan.
In some ways? It regressed the whole nine yards. Won't be surprised if Turkey ends up as a basket case of a major economic crisis which will inadvertently lead to a major social crisis.
This is a worldwide phenomenon of "too much" democracy (populism) vs. weak republics/administrative states/similar with increasing corruption plus manufactured consent to have more of it, funded by hamfisted billionaires.
Disagree. The current make-up of the EU barely represents historical bonds with so many nations in it. Though a populist leader using such history as leverage is not unbelievable, official Austrian reasoning behind refusal was much more pragmatic, human rights and migrants. Turkey is a regional player punching above their weight (potentially upsetting power balance less-so economically but definitely diplomatically and militarily) and is not exactly in line with EU ideals, culturally and politically, due to years of unstability and turmoil.
That being put aside, despite flaunting acceptance and democracy as their foremost goal, EU leaders surely knew not compromising on Turkey's accession would stray them farther of the EU in every way possible. And if that helps with a potentially bigger migrant crisis, so much the better.
Nations holding the region of Turkey are historically very powerful. My guess is that historical forces are reasserting themselves and that we may could see a much more assertive Turkey going forward.
... due to controlling a key choke-point in land trade between europe and the middle-east and asia. That hardly applies now. The suez canal would be a better modern equivalent.
I respectfully disagree given the basic fragility of the Suez Canal system along with the fact that Egypt is not growing into a major world power on the back of their governance of this canal.
No, they aren't, and there are plenty of reasons for that, not in the least because the canal is very different from a major trade city. But then, land trade is not making a comeback either. So if you're arguing for something to restore the historic importance of Troy, Constantinople etc, you're going to have to find a factor besides historic inevitability.
I didn't follow it back then but why did Austria block it? I would have expected Greece to do so a lot more (considering the Cyprus conflict is still unresolved)
Did you even read that article? The first paragraph mentions a UK woman who posted "Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f—ing hotels full of the bastards for all I care. (...)". The rest is also mostly about the UK, not the EU. There's a case of prosecuting satire from Germany mentioned that I'll admit is bad, but that's one example in one EU country.
Did you? Let me spoonfeed you the most relevant parts:
> A German right-wing journalist posted a fake image online of the interior minister holding a sign that read “I hate freedom of opinion” and was subsequently handed a seven-month suspended prison sentence. A woman who posted images of politicians with painted-on Hitler mustaches and called a minister a terrorist was fined about $690.
...
> In France, a woman spent 23 hours in custody for giving French President Emmanuel Macron the middle finger. (She was acquitted after arguing she had pointed her finger in the air and not directly at the president.) Denmark passed a new law outlawing “improper treatment” of religious texts after a series of incidents in recent years when Quran burnings sparked an angry response. A landmark trial began in May for two men accused of burning a Quran at a folk festival in front of an audience.
...
> In March last year, Stefan Willi Niehoff, a 64-year-old former soldier and retired truck driver, reposted an image he had seen shared on X that showed then-Economy Minister Robert Habeck with the words “Schwachkopf Professional,” which translates to “professional idiot” and was a take on the logo from cosmetics brand Schwarzkopf Professional. Then he forgot about it. Months later, Niehoff was awakened by a ring at the door at 6:15 a.m. to find two plainclothes police officers demanding to search his home.
These are EU countries. Despite Brexit it is apparent that EU and the UK are still on the same page when it comes to curtailing free speech and expanding the surveillance state.
It is much better though. What EU country has been headed by the same person for 22 years? What EU country has its greatest ever football player flipping burgers at the other end of the world under a fake name, because he dared to not show full support for the supreme leader? What EU country faked a coup in order to change laws, so that the supreme leader can stay in power, ban opposition, and oppress minorities?
I mean yeah, EU certainly has a long, long, LONG list of problems, but let's not lose sight of the big picture.
You are a victim of the Nirvana fallacy [1]: "Europe is better than Turkey in terms of freedom of speech, but since neither is perfect, they are equally bad."
The US is not that exceptional nor principled. The concept of "freedom of speech" is absolute when Republicans want to say Republican things, but it's a "national security issue" when Muslims make too much noise. When sexual minorities want to speak, the priority is to "protect family values" instead. Corporations have "freedom of speech", but TikTok boosting black-green-red flags isn't protected speech, but an agent of the enemy corrupting the youth.
European countries have their own dogmas and hypocrisy, only draw the line at different topics (especially where everyone had their grandparents traumatized in a war started by the Grok's favorite character).
Could you give examples of when a U.S. citizens speech rights were legally taken away? Lets go with one of your examples of "When sexual minorities want to speak". Please elaborate.
None of the examples you gave are actually examples of speech being restricted. Its people (sometimes politicians) freely voicing their opinions on others speech, that is not restriction.
Literally in the last week, the Supreme Court ruled that books featuring gay couples need to be opt-out in schools. They've quite literally taken the stance that someone literally just seeing the existence of a gay couple in a children's picture book is a violation of their freedom.
> They've quite literally taken the stance that someone literally just seeing the existence of a gay couple in a children's picture book is a violation of their freedom.
No.
They've taken the stance that parents get to decide what books their kids see.
Other parents are free to make a different decision.
Do you really think that there's a "right" to force others to read books that you choose?
> They've taken the stance that parents get to decide what books their kids see.
So why draw the line at books depicting gay couples, rather than literally all books? Because this has nothing to do with the ban, except for being a “family-friendly” bullshit justification.
That's not how the Supreme Court works. They are selective about the cases they hear. Especially looking at a 6-3 ruling with this court it's clear to see this was an ideological selection.
Yes, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court who chose to hear it instead of choosing not to hear it. That is ultimately why they ruled on the case.
Given that, it really does seem that the court ruled 6-3 in favor of the plaintiffs who are trying to draw a line around gay couples because the court is trying to draw a line around gay couples.
Other parents making a different decision doesn't matter if the schools find it virtually impossible to have these books because of the logistical requirements of allowing kids to leave the classroom every time certain books are read.
> Do you really think that there's a "right" to force others to read books that you choose?
Do I really think that public schools have a right to assign reading of certain books for classes? Is this even a real question? How do you think English classes work?
Do you even know what you are talking about? Do you know how many journalists are in prison in Turkey? "Restricting speech", whatever that means, is nowhere near as putting journalists, mayors, and citizens in prison for "insulting" the president or for saying things that the president and his shills do not like.
It would help to read the article we're discussing.
> Journalist posted a fake image online of the interior minister holding a sign that read “I hate freedom of opinion” and was subsequently handed a seven-month suspended prison sentence. A woman who posted images of politicians with painted-on Hitler mustaches and called a minister a terrorist was fined about $690.
It's probably useless to answer, but you are not addressing the question, which was about whether there are actually journalists in prison in the EU or not (there are not) whereas imprisonment of journalists in Turkey is an occupational hazard.
I've given you the most direct example anyone can give, a journalist that was legally handed a prison sentence for basic speech. There are more cases in other EU countries in the article, just read.
At one point, they were close to joining the EU.