Talk:Accession of Turkey to the European Union/Archive 2

message: There have been no major arguments for the best part of a month now. I am removing the disputed neutrality notice, adding a note to the top of the talk page mentioning past controversy, and archiving old (and a bit nasty) talk (still linked above).
Hope this is OK, after all, any remaining issues can be revisited with a calm and fresh approach.
zoney ♣ talk 12:44, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Controversy

message: I see on this page alot of reasons why the Europeans are hesitant to allow Turkey to join, but none as to why they would want (or even strongly consider) them to.
Can someone fill me in on the "Pro" side of this debate? Oberiko 15:26, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: European reasons for admitance?

message: I think the 'overview' section should be destroyed as its more or less redundant now. Whatever bits not covered in the other sections can be moved to the other sections.
--138.253.160.195 18:49, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Have merged parts of it to History section, parts of it to the concerns & opposition section. Aris Katsaris 00:15, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Structure

message: If radio reports are accurate, Turkey has yielded on recognising Cyprus.
: Your reports are not correct: Turkey would only sign an extension of the existing customs-agreement with the EU that extends that agreement to all news EU-members, including Cyprus. That however, is at best a partial and indirect recognition, as Turkey still refuses that any official recognition, trade, Cypriotic ships in its ports, .... Therefore, that recognition wouyld still not incldues even only 1% of what real reognition means. In short, Turkey wants to force the EU to someting absolutely unprecedented and hugely dangerous, being a de facto right for a brutal nationalistic (and military) strongman regime to habe its way, and not recognise the rules of the club.  --Rudi Dierick 13:19, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update 

message: Don't you think that Erdogan's anti-adultery bill (the one that was withdrawn after reactions from the EU) deserves a mention? Etz Haim 04:23, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I must be included, alongside other governement politcy that breaches the rules of a secular democracy: political censorshop, de facto recognition of polygamous mariages, discrimination of other religions, recent strengthening of police instuctions against 'un-islamic' hbehavior (liking mane and woman holding hands in public, ...)!  If this article is to be a honesdt,   objective presentation of facts, then also the recent anti-adultery proposals from within Erdogan's party must be included.--Rudi Dierick 13:22, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-adultery bill

message: Recently, I added a few sentences on other issues. The problems that the hugesize of Turkey, doubled with the unprecedetned difference in actual level of economic development, make it purely economically an integration tasks of unprecedetned size. However, this issues was removed without any reason? This issues is mentionned in many articles in financial and quality press, so it is relevznt.  This removal therefore appears censorship. --Rudi Dierick 13:07, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Censorship on the 'size & depth' of any possible integration & other ssues? 

message: What does 90% of people in Turkey fasting during Ramadan have anything to do with its 'religiousness'? Over 90% of just about every country in the EU (except maybe Cyprus) is Cristian. Does that mean that they should be denied from the EU? Or is it just because Turkey is Muslim? ςפקιДИτς 14:50, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: While EU countries tend overall to be christian-dominated, such things as church attendance being very low, results in a categorisation of cultural secularism. Religion just doesn't play so big part in many people's lives.  How many EU christians observe lent, for example? That said, I do think the phrase it perhaps too bold. It should either more clearly explain the link from evidence to argument, or be removed, perhaps to be replaced with a more appropriate fact.--Nema Fakei 20:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Quite agree with Nema Fakei. Not only church attendance is low, also christian influence over politics. All over Europe, many 'christian' organisations are rdemoving the 'christian label' from their names, and its influence from their program in order to broaden it. In addition, and even more important to me, is that all those christians gladly accept that secular laws have full priority over any religious rule. In Turkey, the 'Kemalists' also try that, with quite some fervor, but there appears to be a creeping islamization which is gaining influence. that means rapidly growing street presence of ostensibly islamic Turks, that sunni imams receive large state funding (whereas Alevi and Christians get nothing, even cannot educate their religious folks), that polygamous mariages continue in certain areas. Similarly, during the last 20 years Turkey signed several ministerial declarations where Quran is declared a higher standard then the UDHR from the UN. --Lucas Richards 23:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fast 

message: I find this notion a little dubious.  I'm presently looking for an apartment in Germany, and I've seen plenty of ads looking for a nice catholic or evangelical roommate.  Well count me out of those places.  Just my 2 cents. Dsol 16:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Secular means the seperation of state and church (religion), not that people are agnostic or atheistic. Sijo Ripa 11:26, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "secular europe" 

message: I heard this on BBC news, is this still around?:
:Article 301/1 of the Turkish Penal Code under which Orhan Pamuk will be tried is a case in point. PEN sees it extraordinary that a state that has ratified both the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which see freedom of expression as central, should have a Penal Code that includes a clause that is so clearly contrary to these very same principles. To quote Article 301/1: "A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years." To compound matters, Article 301/3 states: "Where insulting being a Turk is committed by a Turkish citizen in a foreign country, the penalty to be imposed shall be increased by one third."
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4205708.stm
- FrancisTyers 01:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article 301 

message: It is becoming more evident from many articles and interviews and such currently "cultural" i.e. religious differences is the main reason for rejecting Turkish membership. Many sources including EU officials such as Olli Rehn has suggested this is the main reason for popular vote results. So I have added more emphasis on this. I think there is more to write on this such as France's anti-Muslim sentiment mostly due to its Moroccan immigrants, Germany's integration issues with its Turkish immigrants, and Austria's historical anti-Turkish/anti-Muslim sentiment. More details can be added but it is a start... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.206.252.10 (talk • contribs) 17:12, January 29, 2006  (UTC)
:You mean like the same sentiments against admitting Albania and Bosnia? - FrancisTyers 14:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I also think we should add more info about historical enmity towards Turks + the lobbying done by various diasporas. It's certainly very much effecting the EU process.  Can we include them in "Inherent Reasons" part or do we need to add a new sub-section for that?  --Gokhan 11:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You didn't get it, there are no sentiments against admitting Albania or Bosnia. At least no more than admitting Moldova or Macedonia. Regarding diaspora groups, shoot, sounds good, presumably you are talking largely about Armenians? - FrancisTyers 11:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes - sorry my mistake, I was actually replying to the first comment. I really don't have any information about the EU prospects of those countries.  About the other point, yes some diasporas really have negative lobbying activities, which is fine as that's their opinion.  It's not nice to categorize but some examples came in my mind, such as Armenian Diaspora (France, U.S.), Greek Diaspora (U.K., U.S.) + some countries with historical issues (Austria, Hungary) + some countries with cultural superiority feelings (France, Sweden, Denmark, etc) + some countries with bad feelings towards their own Turkish immigrant population (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium).  These reasons exist but off course there's a lot of politics and diplomacy.  No German chancellor comes up saying "Our population hate Turks" or no French minister says "They killed our Armenian friends".  Even Austrian foreign minister lady changed her rhetoric in front of journalists.  They end up saying "Why not Ukraine?" as a counter argument... Anyway, in addition to concerete reasons, these can be added somewhat, but I couldn't place exactly where?  Do you have a suggestion?  --Gokhan 12:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Is more emphasis on freligion needed?  In principle, it should not be, as this topic is about something political / institutiona (one state possibly joining a union of states). However, as soon as religious arguments become important in the discussion about the desirability of such an ascession -either because proponents claim their ascession can not be refused as that would constitute a denial of it's dominantly islamic nature, either because antagonists and observers note that religious rules tend, from whatever side, to creep into the political discussion-  then the religious aspects must not be censored away.  --Lucas Richards 15:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Emphasis on Religion Needed 

message: User:Slaciner just added the following external links to the article. They don't seem to have a lot of substance, they're all to the user's own site, and the site has ads. I'm reverting them as linkspam for now - if any of them are worthwhile, presumably someone else will add them back to the article. --Fuzzie (talk) 22:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: What is the subject of this sentence? Members of the Alevi community (the subject of that line)? Current EU-members (referred to at certain other moments, earlier in this article)? 
The first option doesn't make much sense. The second option was debated already earlier, but it appears some people are mixcing up symbolic things (like the British queen having to be anglican), that is, things that do NOT affect the life of religious minorities with things that (greatly) influence their daily life. There is also a second error in the reasoning of those who say that the fact that here or there, one could dispute if religious freedoms are generally respected in other EU-countries and that such a critique is sufficient reason why this argument cannot be held against Turkey. The reasoning error is that this line of reasoning basically avoids a decent assessment of the severity of the infractions of religious freedoms. --Lucas Richards 15:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not symbolic that faith schools exist in Britain - in fact the current government is rather keen to extend them.Dejvid 16:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  And what's wrong with faith schools?  In Belgium (Flanders as well as the French-speaking part), ALL recognised religions who have asked formal permission to open faith schools have obtained it, so I don't see the point in your remark. --Lucas Richards 23:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed vague sentence  "Some current members are also open to criticism on these grounds." 

message: The argument using the admission of Cyprus as an EU member when it is geographically in Asia as a reason for Turkey to be allowed to join is invalid.  The article fails to take into account the cultural similarities (language, religion, shared history, the commonwealth etc) that cyprus has with other EU member states already.
:It is an answer to those who make a geographic objection.  The principle has been established that the barest toehold in Euroupe is enough to qualify.  Cyprus doesn't even meet that criteria.   It is a geographic answer to geographic objection  so it most certaily is validDejvid 20:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If language were  ever to be a criteria then Hungary and Finland too would have problems.Dejvid 20:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The funny thing is nobody was saying we're not in Europe until 2004.  This EU membership issue is going on for decades, since 60's.  But oh! - things got serious sometime ago.  And now we're not in Europe geographically, our language and culture is not European, we're historically very bad people, and we're very much muslim :) Shame on us, how we dare to even think about EU?  --Gokhan 11:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't want to cause controversy, but Turkey only has a miniscule area of Europe, Turkish is not an Indo-European language, the culture is unique - difficult to categorize, and 99% of the population is muslim. I have absolutely nothing against Turkey, and I even want to visit Istambul sometime in the next decade or so, but you have to understand that many of the European states are afraid of the admission of such an alien culture into the EU, and fear there will be a mass influx of immigrants when the Schengen agreement is ratified, also they are afraid that the borders of Turkey are not secure enough, and with Schengen in place it would be easy for terrorists to slip from Iraq and Iran into the EU. There are historical issues at play here as well, the Armenian genocide (whether it happened or not), and the human rights record of Turkey cause concern among some EU members. +Hexagon1 (t) 05:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cyprus Issue

message: I have reverted the recent edits by User:Robert klein (marked as being minor, but obviously not so), given the additions to the article by this user were merely statements of personal view on the subject, not using a neutral language, and not at all compatible with the encyclopedic tone maintained throughout the article. If there are widely recognized issues regarding Turkish criminals in the EU, I think these should be mentioned in a new subsection under the present "Arguments used against Turkish membership", without introducing a whole new section called "Turkey and crime".
For the subsection "Human rights, democracy, and other internal issues", I am reproducing here the paragraph I have reverted, for making my point more clear:
"In 1919, a Turkish court convicted several Ottoman Turkish leaders of crimes against the Armenians but these Ottoman leaders were allowed to escape to Europe.The significance of these trials was that the post-Ottoman Turkish government was clearly trying to distance itself from the crime of Genocide committed by the Ottoman leaders eventhough they were not much different in regards to their human rights."
The paragraph is again just a statement of personal view on the subject of Armenian Genocide, poor in terms of neutral language use, and it is not clear how this new addition relates to the accession of Turkey to the EU. There already exists a paragraphy summarizing the view of the Turkish government and its opposers on this subject. A better place for this addition, with a neutral language and proper sourcing, would be the Armenian Genocide article already linked, if not mentioned there. Peace, Atilim Gunes Baydin 22:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a few people trying to include personal opinions in this article (unless they are the same person under a different name). In my opinion this article needs a major rewrite, its as if people come and stick in any issue concerning Turkey, even if it is of little consequence to their EU accesion. In my opinion this article should be turned from a For/Against into a "Factors affecting accesion" - That can subsequently be divided into political, economic, strategic etc and explain all the details within those headings. --A.Garnet 17:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That might be a good idea.  Let's try!  --Lucas Richards 23:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits by [[User:Robert klein]]