Turkey’s EU enthusiasm wanes
Unlike its neighbour, Greece, Turkey is now doing well.
Turkey’s EU enthusiasm wanes
Just a few years ago, Turkey’s membership was the biggest open question in the EU’s future – now, it is the very future of the EU itself.
In our part of the world, it’s been the habit to refer to a country in financial difficulty as the ’sick man of Europe’. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia coined this nickname in reference to the Ottoman Empire, nowadays Turkey. But Greece is now the sick man of Europe, while Turkey’s GDP grew almost nine per cent last year. EU-membership does not, therefore, interest Turks as much as it used to, says Toni Alaranta, a researcher in political history from the University of Helsinki whose doctoral thesis covered Turkish history.
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