I agree that some ethnic discriminations in some of the new and future members have to stop. Those countries must understand that those old feuds have no place in an EU with no internal borders and where citizens, goods, and money can travel freely.
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Originally Posted by simon
these French geographical arguments are just a smokescreen
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Oh when i said that i was opposed to Turkey because it's not a European country, i was not talking geographically, i meant that this country does not belong to the European civilization, and i don't intend to be politically correct here.
In my opinion, the EU can only admit countries that are part of the European civilization, meaning countries that are part of the Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Slavic, and Greek ethno-linguistic groups. (I am aware that Finns, Estonians, and Hungarians are not Indo-European peoples, but they've been immersed in European culture for so long that, except for their languages, they are now indistinguishable from Europeans.) And this has nothing to do with the EU being a Christian club, in my eyes Christianity is not what defines the European civilization, this civilization existed long before Christianity. European values and cultural traits have their roots in ancient Greece and also in the common background shared by all European peoples, all far more ancient than Christianity.
The EU is about unifying the European civilization, not unifying the European civilization and its neighbors. To the south, we have the Arabic civilization and no countries from that area will be admitted, to the south east we have the Turkic civilization that spreads from Turkey to the Uighur region in China and no countries from that area should be admitted either. We have nothing in common, either ethnically, culturally, historically, or linguistically, nothing at all.
And i have nothing against those civilizations, i hope that they will create pan-Arabic and pan-Turkic areas for their countries to develop in common, but that's for them to build, not us.
I am amazed to see some people criticizing the EU for only admitting European countries. That's only normal. The goal of the EU is to provide a stable, peaceful, and wealthy environment to all European peoples that share common culture, values, and history. The EU won't work if we admit a country that clearly does not belong to the European civilization, that would only jeopardize everything we've built and bring chaos.
And the theory that admitting countries from neighboring civilizations would create "bridges" and prevent a clash of civilizations is simply ridiculous. We would get the clash *inside* the EU, no good can come out of that, it would destroy the Union.
And let's be honest here, Turkey is only interested in the economic side of the EU and could care less of the political implications. Do the Turkish people really want to take part in the European parliament? No. Do they share our values about human rights and equality? Certainly not. A simple trade agreement between the EU and Turkey is enough, but the integration of Turkey as a member state is out of the question.
This ambiguous situation with Turkey which is mainly due to Turkey's strategic geographical location during the cold war has to stop, the EU must say clearly to Turkey that it won't become a member, ever.
As for Moldova, Ukraine and even Belarus, well, obviously they *are* European countries and have the right to apply, but they need to be patient. First because their economies are a mess and they need to reform, second because the fact that they are members of the CIS makes things difficult. Being of member of the CIS means that Russia still has a lot to say about what those countries do, Russia has military forces stationed in all of them, a large part of Russia's navy is stationed in Ukraine for example, Ukraine will have to work this issue with Russia because Russia won't let its navy be under EU's jurisdiction, not to mention that Russia is getting a lot of resources from Ukraine at a very low cost, that would change with an EU membership.
I agree that Moldova with only 4 million people is not too much of a burden for an EU with then 500 million people, but all the difficulties with Russia about Ukraine joining the EU also apply to Moldova even if for Russia it's more a principle than a real threat to its security.
Moldova really missed its chance 10 years ago right after the collapse of the USSR, at the time it could have merged with Romania and now it would be joining the EU in 3 years. It's a missed opportunity for them.
The wrecked economies of those countries and the necessity to work an agreement with Russia leads me to think that those countries won't be joining before the 2020s.