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Is Turkey's EU bid blocked by prejudice?

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  • Is Turkey's EU bid blocked by prejudice?

    Sofia Echo, Bulgaria
    Jan 7 2010


    Is Turkey's EU bid blocked by prejudice?

    Thu, Jan 07 2010 11:39 CET by Gabriel Hershman

    David Cronin, writing in the Guardian, says that Turkey's longstanding
    bid to join the European Union seems further away than ever in the
    wake of human rights concerns, what he calls "subtle anti-Islamic
    prejudice" and Bulgaria's recent threat to block its neighbour's entry
    unless Ankara pays compensation for its expulsion of Thracians in the
    early 20th century.

    Cronin agress that Turkey's record of suppression of dissent merits a
    rebuke. He cites the prosecution of Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk who
    gave an interview in 2005 in which he discussed the genocide
    perpetrated by Ottoman forces against 1.5 million Armenians nine
    decades earlier.

    The article maintains that that darker forces may be at work in
    Turkey's difficulty in entering the EU club. Cronin refers to the
    stance of both French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor
    Angela Merkel and claims that their views represent a hidden
    prejudice.

    "This anti-Turkish bias is tantamount to racism. Even though the EU
    institutions officially claim to cherish diversity, there is a tacit
    agreement among some of their most powerful leaders that the union
    must remain predominantly Christian."

    He notes comments made by the EU's new president Herman Van Rompuy,
    albeit before he assumed his current high office, when he said, in
    2004, that "the universal values which are in force in Europe, and
    which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour
    with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey".

    Cronin concludes his piece by wondering whether this attitude should
    be tolerated. "The EU is nominally a club of democracies; why is it
    allowed to discriminate on religious grounds?"

    http://www.sofiaecho.com/2010/01/0 7/838792_is-turkeys-eu-bid-blocked-by-prejudice
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