RE: EU Enlargement Process…In or Out!!!

Okay, my tuppence worth:

1. Turkey – I used to argue that Turkey should not be allowed to join because it was poor. But some of the future members are also poor so I guess wealth is no longer a pre-requisite for membership. However, Turkey still has severe human rights issues and morally, they should not be allowed to join.

2. Cyprus – it depends what Greece does. The Greeks really need to go out on a limb and defend Cyprus within the EU. Maybe Cyprus would be better becoming part of Greece? I’m only advocating that as a shortcut to EU membership. I think the US will pressurise the EU to be nice to Turkey, which is why the Greeks need to assert some counter pressure and stand up for their cousins. Greece also needs to be really friendly to Israel (even defend Israel at EU summits) becuase Israel and the US are the same thing anyway.

3. Eastern members. There was a sketch in the British satirical magazine Private Eye recently. It parodied Silvio Berlusconi (I assume it was him!) complaining:

“All these countries can’t join. They’re not nearly corrupt enough!”

So there you have it. Being poor=OK, being corrupt=absolutely fantastic. Hating democracy-wonderful, when can you join?