"The Widening Atlantic
Our growing transatlantic estrangement has less to do with George W. Bush's foreign policy than with deep social changes in Europe
by Niall Ferguson
..........Moreover, those demographic forces may soon be given a political boost if Turkey's bid for membership in the European Union is successful. If Turkey were to join in, say, 2015, that country would be as important as Germany in terms of population: according to current projections, each would account for 14.5 percent of all EU citizens. Suddenly there would be more Muslims than Protestants in this new Europe.
Admittedly, some European politicians show signs of getting cold feet about Turkish accession. "That would be the end of the European Union," the former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing famously declared in 2002. Other elder statesmen share his fears, among them the former German chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl.
But few European leaders dare say this kind of thing while they are in office. That is especially true in Germany, where party leaders are terrified of alienating the already large Turkish-German community. In any case, the majority of German voters seem to favor Turkish accession.
Unless demographic projections are wrong, the only way to avert a gradual Islamicization of Europe over the next few generations is to throw out Turkey's application for EU membership and stop further immigration from Islamic countries."
More:The Atlantic Online | January/February 2005 | The Widening Atlantic | Niall Ferguson