I'm Back IV... Europe...

The big news is of course that Turkey got the green light. Hopefully, the process won't be aborted by either side. Since opposing majorities in public opinion in most EU countries is often mentioned in English-language news, I note that several polls in at least Germany (which has the most Turkish immigrants) show significant majorities in favour of Turkey joining on the medium to long term. Which is what most Turks themselves expect anyway. And what I would view as healthy, also considering that we Central-Eastern Europeans will pose some major problems (and not through a migration many in the West fear, it's more about values and political culture and adapting to institutions) for quite some years.

In this respect, I was happy to see that Edward at A Fistful Of Euros, whom I agree on Turkey but not on econo-demographics, was among the few who didn't forget that Romania and Bulgaria are about to join too, and that doing it in 2007 as envisaged might be more problematic than Turkey.