[Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel’s] opposition to Turkey’s bid for EU membership is explained by what a columnist in the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet accurately described as “basic facts not pronounced openly” on Monday. “Turkey is a Muslim country,” Mehmet Ali Birand wrote. “And Europe is not ready yet to accept a Muslim country in the EU.”
This anti-Turkish bias is tantamount to racism. Even though the EU institutions officially claim to cherish diversity, there is a tacit agreement among some of their most powerful leaders that the union must remain predominantly Christian. Herman Van Rompuy, the EU’s new president, is one of the few to have voiced this desire in a public forum (and that was long before his recent elevation in status). “The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey,” he told a meeting at the Belgian parliament in 2004. [continued…]
