The fiction that Turkey is a candidate to join the EU is unravelling
Many European voters don’t want a big Muslim nation in their club, even if it becomes more democratic
AUSTRIA’S CHANCELLOR, Sebastian Kurz, may have been speaking for a few other European governments earlier this summer when he suggested that Turkey would be the most appropriate refuge for Afghans escaping the Taliban. But he was not speaking for Turkey, or for the Afghans themselves. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, declared last week that Turkey would not be “Europe’s refugee warehouse”. Most Turks agree. In a country home to well over 4m migrants and refugees, including an estimated 200,000-600,000 Afghans, resentment towards the newcomers is mounting. But so is frustration that Turkey, formally a candidate for membership in the EU, has become its buffer state.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Nowhere fast”
Europe August 28th 2021
- A visit to a stronghold of the AfD, Germany’s far-right party
- France’s Greens prepare to pick a standard-bearer
- The Social Democrats’ surge upends Germany’s election campaign
- Employment is growing strongly in the euro zone
- Bullies proclaiming “national patriarchy” harass Russian feminists
- The fiction that Turkey is a candidate to join the EU is unravelling
From the August 28th 2021 edition
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She threatens to bring down the French government, but also faces a possible ban from politics
The maths of Europe’s military black hole
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Ukraine’s warriors brace for a Kremlin surge in the south
Vladimir Putin’s war machine is pushing harder and crushing Ukrainian morale
Vladimir Putin fires a new missile to amplify his nuclear threats
The attack on Ukraine is part of a new era of missile warfare
A rise in antisemitism puts Europe’s liberal values to the test
The return of Europe’s oldest scourge
Once dominant, Germany is now desperate
As an election looms its business model is breaking down