Thursday, January 03, 2008

Fear or being misinformed?

Below you will find a comment, published on TDN forum, of a British friend of mine who lives in the Netherlands.
I don't say that I agree or disagree with him, but it shows how bad the Turkish Republic is doing its PR, relying on the USA to enter the EU.

Very often you hear (mostly Turkish) diplomats telling the world just how strategically (militarily) important Turkey is for the security of Europe and especially the EU.
Nope! The EU is not looking for an extra army. These people sometimes forget that there are enough nuclear powers in the EU, not to speak of far more advanced armies as it is already.

There is also this story about being 'a bridge between the West and the Muslim world'. Nope! EU has it's own institutions and channels for this. They don't need some kind of broker or middle man. Anyway the Turks will never be accepted by the Arabs as a go between.

How about Turkey being the most important energy hub for the EU? Nope! Useful but not the most important. Again the EU has it’s own institutions and channels for this and again there is no need of yet another broker.

Then you have the story about how beneficial Turkey’s accession would be for the job markets in the EU, how this would solve the social welfare costs for the aging population of Europe.

Turkey’s accession would be for the job markets in the EU, how this would solve the social welfare costs for the aging population of Europe. Nope!

Truth is, is that although unemployment in the EU is at an all time low, still more than the half of the social welfare recipients in the EU are immigrants (1st 2nd and even 3rd generation) from outside the EU. A big proportion of them are Turks (or shall we say Turkish passport holders). Why should this trend change once Turkey is in the EU? They will just create an even bigger burden on the tax payers then they do now.

Its up to you to comment.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy 2008!!
From a cold place in the USA...)

Anonymous said...

I don't agree with the author of this piece. Regarding the army he is right. And Turkey is already in the NATO.
Lots of Turks did the dirty work and became ill. Therefore they have WAO.(some kind of welfare)Do we have to send them back? No!
Hans, you wrote this yourself in one of your columns.

the Husband said...

Hans, you sometimes make comments that are not far from these...however I agree Turkey's PR is very bad but so is the degree of xenophobia about Turkey, especially from Hungarian immigrants in France...its also embarrassing that a Brit is the publisher of these comments but then again its not that surprising as he has probably been smoking too much dope in the cafes....!!!!! and when added to the piss poor education that mots Brits receive this attitude is not taht surprising.