P. VERLUISE. EU: Which Turkish Candidature ?

What can economics and demography tell us about Turkey, today and going forward ? The advantage of approaching Turkey from the economic and demographic angles is that it enables us to circumnavigate the hypersensitive terrain of cultural ─ not to mention confessional ─ differences. We should, moreover, remember that France is one of the countries that rejected – much to the disappointment, notably, of Poland – any reference to Christianity in the draught constitutional treaty from which the Treaty of Lisbon is largely inspired. It can be counter-productive on more than one score to dwell unduly on Turkey’s belonging to the Muslim zone of influence : firstly out of respect to the majority of the Turkish population, and to the millions of Muslims who are citizens of the European Union or have immigrated to a member country ; and secondly to other candidates for accession, such as Bosnia, which have significant Muslim communities. Let us therefore look at Turkey in turn from the economic (I), and demographic (II) vantage points. As part of its interdisciplinary approach to geopolitical analysis, Diploweb.com is delighted to bring you an extract from the new work by Pierre Verluise, Géopolitique des frontières européennes. Elargir, jusqu’où ? (The Geopolitics of the European Frontiers ? Where Should Expansion Stop ?), illustrated by 20 color maps, published in France by Argos, 2013, and distributed by Puf. The selected extract is in fact the second chapter, published under the title : Quelle candidature turque ? The maps used to illustrate the chapter in the book are not reproduced here. Pierre Verluise owns the rights to the English translation of his book Géopolitique des frontières européennes. Publishers of books, magazines or Web sites interested in publishing an extract or the whole of the book in English are invited to contact Pierre Verluise at verluise@iris-france.org. SEE EU: WHICH TURKISH CANDIDATURE ? PIERRE VERLUISE