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Originally Posted by simon
I don't think Turkey should be admitted to the European Union unless it changes completely, but it would be a big mistake to reject them now.
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Well, i don't think Turkey should be admitted to the EU ever, but i don't think it should be rejected either, but there are other ways than EU membership to achieve that.
Originally there were two competing organizations in Europe, the EEC (Benelux, France, Germany, Italy) which represented the French-German vision for Europe with economic and political integration (inspired by the BENELUX agreements), and the EFTA (Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, UK) which represented the UK vision for Europe with only economics in view. At some point, for a reason that i have never understood, the UK decided to leave the EFTA to join the EEC even though it didn't agree with the EEC project (it was a big mistake to accept the UK in the EEC in my opinion).
Then the EEC evolved into the EU and several EFTA members joined the EU, but the EFTA still exists today (it has 4 members: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein). Nowadays the EU and the EFTA are no longer competing, the EU and the EFTA have even created a new organization called the EEA which creates a free trade zone between the EU and the EFTA members that agreed to it (Switzerland refused to adhere to the EEA).
Basically, the EEA was designed for countries who want to be a part of the economic area of the EU but don't want to be a part of the political integration of the EU.
Personally, i would have no problem with Turkey joining the EFTA and the EEA, that way Turkey would be economically tightly integrated with the EU (which is the only thing that interests Turkey) but would remain outside the political aspects of the EU (which don't interest Turkey). I think that would be a satisfactory solution for everybody.
I'll add that with the adoption of the EU constitution which is a step forward federalism, the eurosceptic members of the EU are going to have to make a clear choice. The EU constitution has no chance of being adopted in the UK for example (i don't know for Denmark and Sweden), once the UK has rejected the EU constitution, it will be a logical conclusion in my opinion that it should withdraw from the EU and go back to the EFTA/EEA, that way the UK will continue to enjoy the free trade market with the EU but won't have to deal with the political side of the EU which it profoundly rejects and despises.
For people who are not Europeans and my not be familiar with the acronyms:
EEC: European Economic Community
EFTA: European Free Trade Association
EEA: European Economic Area