re: #75 Dr Lizardo

The EU expanded too far too fast.

Speaking of which, the stars seem to be aligning somewhat for Turkey and their protracted 50-year quest to join up. The new German Foreign Minister seems to be supportive of the idea, the Romanians are going to bat for Turkey, the Brits have long wanted Turkey in the EU, and the current government seems…..well, less overtly hostile to the idea.

That’s an interesting one; I’d reckon that if tomorrow, by some fluke of history, Brussels made Turkey a straight-up EU member state, the shrieks would be epic.

on the other side of the coin, the EU and Turkey are in the process of eliminating visa restrictions both ways, with a target date of 2017. That’s only three years away, and should that go down, that means visa-free travel for Turks to the EU and vice-versa.

That’ll be interesting.

That is going to be very interesting to watch. It really seems the timing for bringing Turkey into the fold is really bad. Erdoᇺn has massive domestic problems, human rights abuses and was probably laundering money/gold for Iran. They’re in the process of strengthening ties with Iran and seem to be on a strong track towards a permanent Islamist government. I’m not sure how Turkey’s choices are going to fit in with UN standards for human rights but it will be interesting to see them try.