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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (93275)	1/2/2005 7:59:26 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793738

I suspect it will be a HOT STOVE subject in the interim National elections as well. Plenty of Americans regardless of party are going to be STEAMED over this if HEADS DONT ROLL. jdn

To: LindyBill who wrote (93275)	1/2/2005 8:08:29 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793738

How do you get a law passed to change the system if the system gets a so many into congress that perhaps wouldn't have been there with out stuffing the ballot box. hmmm this discussion could keep us warm through the winter .

To: LindyBill who wrote (93275)	1/2/2005 8:11:22 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793738

Turkey has to conform to the rule sets. TURKEY'S E.U. HURDLES By AMIR TAHERI January 1, 2005 -- 'Each time we jump a hurdle, they set up another!" This is how Mesut Yilmaz, the for mer Turkish prime minister, described his country's experience with the European Union a few years ago. Yilmaz knew what he was talking about if only because for many years, in different government positions, he had been in charge of his country's negotiations for E.U. membership. Yilmaz's view was reconfirmed just over a week ago; while the European Union summit agreed to open formal negotiations next year about the Turkish application for membership, a number of member states raised the possibility of submitting the issue to referendums. At the same time, the E.U. has raised other issues, including Ankara's recognition of the Greek-dominated government in Nicosia, Cyprus, to slow Turkish membership. Yet even opponents of Turkey's membership now admit that it has met most of the conditions fixed by the E.U. Therefore it was necessary for opponents of Turkish membership to find other hurdles. One such is a suggestion by French President Jacques Chirac that Turkish membership be put to a referendum. The latest public poll shows that 67 percent of the French will vote against Turkish membership under any circumstances. In Germany, opponents account for 55 percent of the electorate. If a referendum were to be held in all the 25 E.U. member-states, Turkey would be rejected by a comfortable majority. Only Britain and Holland among E.U. countries are likely to support Turkish membership. There is, of course, nothing in E.U. rules to oblige the member states to hold such a referendum. But it is enough for a single E.U. member to reject the Turkish application for it to be set aside. It is not clear whether or not Chirac is personally opposed to Turkish membership. He may well be hoping that Turkish membership negotiations would continue long after he has retired from politics. Thus the referendum he promises may never happen under his watch. Others who openly support Turkish membership hope that the process of negotiations, expected to take at least five years, would help change E.U. public opinion in favor of Turkey. Yet another view, known as Plan B and mostly backed by the new members of the E.U., is to offer Turkey what is called a "privileged relationship," which would offer Turkey a number of special economic advantages in its relations with the E.U. — but not membership. The background to all this is the assumption throughout the E.U. that it will be doing a favor to Turkey by letting it in. While this is certainly true, it is equally true that Turkey, too, will be doing the E.U. a favor by joining it. The E.U., after all, started as a common market and is thus primarily about doing business. By the time Turkish membership is finalized, perhaps in 10 years' time, Turkey would have a population of more than 80 million, representing a market worth some $200 billion. As a developing economy, Turkey would also be a magnet for foreign direct investment. The most conservative investments put its capacity to absorb foreign capital at more than $3 billion a year, needed to develop its agriculture, industry, services and infrastructure. But Turkey would be doing the E.U. bigger favors in strategic terms. The E.U. today is a club of aging nations that, without a steady flow of immigrants from the peripheries, especially North Africa, would face a dwindling population. The average age in the E.U. today is 39; in Turkey, it is 27. Turkey could reinvigorate the European labor market by offering millions of young workers — and the choice available to the E.U.'s aging nations is between the Turkish option and a steady flow of immigrants from Arab and African nations that do not espouse the same pro-European sentiments that the Turks have built over decades. Turkey is the only major nation on the peripheries of Europe to have made a conscious decision to Europeanize itself since the 1920s. Turkey could also become an interface between the nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia that belong to the same cultural and linguistic families, and the EU. Beyond the Caucasus and Central Asia, Turkey is the natural interface between Europe and Muslim nations, especially in the Middle East. To all this must be added Turkey's role as Europe's principal line of defense for the past half a century — a role illustrated by the fact that the Turkish Army is the largest of any NATO member after the United States. Despite all these facts it is clear that Turkey is not yet welcome in the E.U. and that it has powerful adversaries in virtually every member state. So has Turkey been unwise to put all its eggs in the E.U. basket? Many in Turkey are beginning to believe so. Some go as far as criticizing the initial decision to seek E.U. membership. Such criticism, however, misses the point. The strategy of seeking E.U. membership has already benefited Turkey by forcing successive governments to strengthen the nation's democracy, improve respect for human rights, and reform the derelict bureaucracy. For all that, it would be unwise for Turkey not to develop a Plan B. Ankara cannot expect to wait indefinitely for the E.U. to make up its mind — and some of the key decisions that Turkey must make in this century cannot be postponed for much longer. On the economic front, Turkey should speed up its liberalization plans, especially by opening the development of its natural resources to foreign investment. And it should also remove the last remaining bureaucratic hurdles that discourage foreign ownership of companies and real estate. Making millions of Europeans owners of shares in Turkish companies and of villas and apartments in Turkish resorts would not only help sustain economic development but would also raise the level of support for Turkish membership within the E.U. Turkey can succeed without early membership of the E.U. The best strategy for Turkey is to pursue its economic and political Europeanization regardless of the length of negotiations with the E.U. Turkey has most of the economic and demographic assets needed to build a successful society. It should work toward the day when the E.U. would be begging it to join — urgently. Amir Taheri is an Iranian author of ten books on the Middle East and Islam and a member of Benador Associates.