Turkey and the E.U.?

Freiheit

Kevin Myers painted a fairly grim view of the migratory effects of such a move. That it would largely be the peasant rather than the cosmopolitan Turks who would migrate, with largely peasant and religous driven values. Nobody wants to say that there isn't forward thinking Turks, but his vision did scare me and of Turkey's possible entry. Is he right? It's in todays Indo.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-for-250-years-turkeys-presence-in-europe-was-invariably-as-an-armed-invader-in-christian-lands-2118175.html

AARRRGH

I don't know if he is right, but I can't see how Ireland would benefit from Turkey joining the EU.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

r14

How is full Turkish membership of the EU in our interests, when the emigrants from both countries will be competing for jobs in mainland Europe?

Myers is just being a bit of a tool as usual. Turks already have a right to come and work in Ireland and the rest of the EU under the Ankara Agreement and it's associated protocols and Decisions of the Association Council. Member States are constrained in how they deal with Turks by virtue of equal treatment provisions in the Agreement - I believe they have a right to reside for work after 1 year continuous employment (open to correction)

This right has existed since before Ireland joined the EU, yet we haven't been swamped by millions of fundamentalist immigrant peasants.

I wouldn't worry too much about Myers' concerns.

Freiheit

thanks, so could Turkeys entry lead to an Islamicicisation of Europe with a crude form of Islam as practiced in rural Turkey? Could it really happen? I fear religion as possibly acting against universal human rights......I hope that common human values will eventually prove stronger......but I wouldn't like a mass immigration here....so Myers apocalyptic vision you feel is unlikely?

BetterLisbon

Turkeys land access to the middle east and it powerful military mean it will be admitted. Anyone who says no...we know what happens if a small country says no.

97i9y3941

from what i read and heard,turkey joining the e.u would give e.u bit of a tighter control on security since its used as a passage for drug trafficking and a haven for extremist terrorists,i think from a business view it could cause alot of shift of factories to turkey since its known that its extremely cheap to goods like steel over there,if it did join apparently would have the biggest population of europe.

sirromo

r14 wrote:

This right has existed since before Ireland joined the EU

That's not true. They have the right to apply for a visa to work in EU countries but they don't have the same right of free movement that the citizens of EU states have.

The wikipedia entry on the Ankara Treaty lists their individual rights under the agreement

Under Article 6(1) of Association Council Decision 1/80, Turkish nationals legally employed in an EEC Member State for certain periods gain rights to remain or switch employment in that state:[5]

- a Turkish national legally employed by the same employer for one year has the right to permission from the Member State to remain in that employment;

- a Turkish national legally employed for three years in a particular area of work has the right to permission from the Member State to take employment with any employer in that area;

- a Turkish national legally employed for four years has the right to permission from the Member State to take employment with any employer.

A Turkish national who works legally as an au pair or while a student can count as a worker.[6]

Granting the Turks the right to free movement in the EU would result in hundreds of thousands of low-wage Turkish workers moving to western Europe, the same as happened when we granted the right of free movement to the east Europeans.

r14 wrote:

I wouldn't worry too much about Myers' concerns.

I think we should treat his concerns the same way we should have treated the concerns of those people who predicted a massive increase in immigration following the accession of the eastern European states a few years ago.

RandomName2

BetterLisbon wrote: »

Turkeys land access to the middle east and it powerful military mean it will be admitted. Anyone who says no...we know what happens if a small country says no.

Mary McAleese informed the Turkish government the other week that Turkish accession had Ireland's full support.

RandomName2

sirromo wrote: »

I think we should treat his concerns the same way we should have treated the concerns of those people who predicted a massive increase in immigration following the accession of the eastern European states a few years ago.

There was a massive increase in immigration following the accession of the eastern European states. Are there more polish speakers than gaelic speakers in Ireland now? (Would be a bit ironic ) However, it is true that some of them have moved back since the recession.

r14

sirromo wrote: »

That's not true. They have the right to apply for a visa to work in EU countries but they don't have the same right of free movement that the citizens of EU states have.

I never said they had a right of free movement. I said they had a right to come and work in Ireland and we are constrained in how we deal with them - ie we do not decide the requirements they must fulfill for residence, it is set at a European level. As you have said, after 1 years continuous employement they get the same rights as an EU worker (excluding a right of free movement but including a right of equal treatment).

Granting the Turks the right to free movement in the EU would result in hundreds of thousands of low-wage Turkish workers moving to western Europe, the same as happened when we granted the right of free movement to the east Europeans.

This is unlikely. As I said the turks already can come here and get a right to work yet the vast majority choose to go to Germany instead.

Denerick

I hope Turkey do join the EU some day. Not only would it give political liberals like me a warm cushy feeling inside (As well as an overdose in self righteousness tolerance disorder) but it'll also cure many of the European economic ills, within a couple of years. European demographics require a large scale injection of youthful workers in order to pay for an ageing population. Without them, retirement is going to be pretty ****ty for all of us, particularly people in our generation. Although there would be social turmoil in assimilating 10+ million Muslims, Turkey is probably the best Muslim influx we could hope for. It has a strong secularist tradition in a huge part of its country and if Europe absorbed the bulk of that population, we might even see the dawn of a new era in Christian-Muslim relations.

Its probably all a wishy washy pipe dream, unfortunately.

southsiderosie

For all of the hoo-hah about a Muslim Turkey joining the EU, I actually think the more serious issue would be the shift of political balance within the EU via :

1) the redistribution of voting rights within the EU parliament, which would immediately make them the second-largest voting bloc (by population...and they would probably become the largest within the next 20 years, given population projections). This would totally disrupt the Franco-German axis of control over EU policy.

2) shift in ideological balance: Ankara is far more pro-business than most of continental Europe

Honestly, this just seems like good old fashioned European Great Power politics: it's no great surprise that Britain supports Turkish membership, which would ostensibly balance against France and Germany.

Scofflaw

southsiderosie wrote: »

For all of the hoo-hah about a Muslim Turkey joining the EU, I actually think the more serious issue would be the shift of political balance within the EU via :

1) the redistribution of voting rights within the EU parliament, which would immediately make them the second-largest voting bloc (by population...and they would probably become the largest within the next 20 years, given population projections). This would totally disrupt the Franco-German axis of control over EU policy.

2) shift in ideological balance: Ankara is far more pro-business than most of continental Europe

Honestly, this just seems like good old fashioned European Great Power politics: it's no great surprise that Britain supports Turkish membership, which would ostensibly balance against France and Germany.

Except over a coffee table rather than through Belgium.

cordially,
Scofflaw

djpbarry

Freiheit wrote: »

Kevin Myers painted a fairly grim view of the migratory effects of such a move. That it would largely be the peasant rather than the cosmopolitan Turks who would migrate, with largely peasant and religous driven values.

Of course he does, because it suits his xenophobic agenda to do so. However, I fail to see why the demographics of Turkish emigrants would be so radically different to those from other nations.

Freiheit wrote: »

thanks, so could Turkeys entry lead to an Islamicicisation of Europe with a crude form of Islam as practiced in rural Turkey? Could it really happen?

Considering that Turkey itself has not yet been “Islamicised” a full 83 years since its foundation (although I suppose that depends on what one considers to be ‘Islamicised’), I find it hard to believe that the whole of Europe would instantly cave in the event that Turkey joined the EU.

sirromo wrote: »

Granting the Turks the right to free movement in the EU would result in hundreds of thousands of low-wage Turkish workers moving to western Europe, the same as happened when we granted the right of free movement to the east Europeans.

Which turned out to be a bad thing because?

southsiderosie

Scofflaw wrote: »

Except over a coffee table rather than through Belgium.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Yes but from their perspective that coffee table is essentially what matters, take it or leave it. And, unfortunately in the next few years, we may see a great deal of "leave it", so the whole Turkey argument may be moot anyway.

Dr_Phil

RandomName2 wrote: »

Are there more polish speakers than gaelic speakers in Ireland now?

My son is Polish and speaks excellent gaelic.. How would you classify that?

BetterLisbon

Scofflaw wrote: »

Except over a coffee table rather than through Belgium.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Yes its all well and good that there isnt WW3 but how does this contribute to a discussion on the merits of turkish membership.

Scofflaw

djpbarry wrote: »

Of course he does, because it suits his xenophobic agenda to do so.

Granting the Turks the right to free movement in the EU would result in hundreds of thousands of low-wage Turkish workers moving to western Europe, the same as happened when we granted the right of free movement to the east Europeans.

Which turned out to be a bad thing because?

See point 1.

cordially,
Scofflaw

sirromo

djpbarry wrote:

Which turned out to be a bad thing because?

Because the unplanned-for increase in our population following the lifting of restrictions added fuel to an already overheated economy and made the hard-landing much harder than it would otherwise have been. If you read the book Banana Republic by Anthony Sweeney, he shows how the massive over-investment in housing post-2004 was largely based on expectations of continued immigration-driven increases in the population.

The increase in our population also put pressure on our infrastructure and our public services and helped justify the increased public spending.

If you're still unconvinced, you might want to take a trip to the nearest dole queue. Ask yourself whether those queues would be longer or shorter today had the Fianna Fail government not decided to throw open our borders to the east Europeans back in 2004.

#15

sirromo wrote: »

Because the unplanned-for increase in our population following the lifting of restrictions added fuel to an already overheated economy and made the hard-landing much harder than it would otherwise have been. If you read the book Banana Republic by Anthony Sweeney, he shows how the massive over-investment in housing post-2004 was largely based on expectations of continued immigration-driven increases in the population.

So the increase in population caused developers to build more houses which cannot be filled because not enough people came......?

There's something not quite right about that point.

sirromo

#15 wrote:

So the increase in population caused developers to build more houses

Yes, I think the increase in the population, and the expectation of further increases, were major factors in the decision to build so many houses. The Irish economy was in the middle of a housing boom anyway and it would have crashed regardless, but the short-sighted decision of the Fianna Fail government back in 2004 to lift the restrictions on the east Europeans added fuel to an already overheated economy.

#15 wrote:

which cannot be filled because not enough people came......?

No, there were plenty of people in the country to fill the houses. And house prices started to fall before there was a major fall in immigration numbers.

I wasn't talking about the reasons for the crash. I was talking about the reason the developers built so many houses. They would have invested in housing even if we didn't have so much immigration. They probably wouldn't have built as many houses as they did though.

mike kelly

Freiheit wrote: »

Kevin Myers painted a fairly grim view of the migratory effects of such a move. That it would largely be the peasant rather than the cosmopolitan Turks who would migrate, with largely peasant and religous driven values. Nobody wants to say that there isn't forward thinking Turks, but his vision did scare me and of Turkey's possible entry. Is he right? It's in todays Indo.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-for-250-years-turkeys-presence-in-europe-was-invariably-as-an-armed-invader-in-christian-lands-2118175.html

yes he is. Germany is a good example of this, where third generation Turks are much more radical than Turks who live in Istanbul. Germanys Turkish immigrants are all from rural areas and are anchored in the past.

mike kelly

r14 wrote: »

Myers is just being a bit of a tool as usual. Turks already have a right to come and work in Ireland and the rest of the EU under the Ankara Agreement and it's associated protocols and Decisions of the Association Council.

complete nonsense

RandomName2

mike kelly wrote: »

yes he is. Germany is a good example of this, where third generation Turks are much more radical than Turks who live in Istanbul. Germanys Turkish immigrants are all from rural areas and are anchored in the past.

Radical turkish migrants are a good thing, surely?

Besides which, they are German European now, not Turkish.

I am all in support of the Turkish military (even if they deny the Armenian genocide - they are the descendants of the Young Turks, after all). But, unfortunately, the Turkish military is on its last legs in the Turkish Government.

I think the Middle East is the only place on Earth where Communistic secular military states are the better option. Maybe Iraq will buck the trend?

Talking of which: remember when Turkey told the world, in no uncertain terms, that they would crush any independent Kurdistan. Not that that was much to worry about - they only managed to conquer half of Cyprus.

I would be inclined to call Turkey a valuable military ally - but besides token forces, the only major use that they have played in the last 50 years was the deployment of US ICBMs.

Calling for Turkish membership of the EU is lunacy. But hey, the promises made about the membership of post-Communist flaky states Bulgaria and Romania were pretty loose.

RandomName2

Scofflaw wrote: »

Except over a coffee table rather than through Belgium.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I'm sure there was a coffee table in Ferdinand Foch's railway carriage

BetterLisbon

RandomName2 wrote: »

I'm sure there was a coffee table in Ferdinand Foch's railway carriage

Indeed before the two world wars the major european powers carved up the globe over a coffee table and a stiff whisky.

djpbarry

sirromo wrote: »

Yes, I think the increase in the population, and the expectation of further increases, were major factors in the decision to build so many houses.

Undoubtedly – I’m not sure why that makes immigration bad though?

sirromo wrote: »

The Irish economy was in the middle of a housing boom anyway and it would have crashed regardless, but the short-sighted decision of the Fianna Fail government back in 2004 to lift the restrictions on the east Europeans added fuel to an already overheated economy.

I’m not so sure about that – immigrants increased competition in the labour market, introducing a degree of ‘control’ on wage increases. As high as the cost of living rose in this country, I’d hate to see how high it would have risen in the absence of immigration.

sirromo wrote: »

I wasn't talking about the reasons for the crash. I was talking about the reason the developers built so many houses. They would have invested in housing even if we didn't have so much immigration. They probably wouldn't have built as many houses as they did though.

You’re basically arguing that immigration from Eastern Europe was a bad thing because property developers lost their collective bet that high levels of immigration would continue indefinitely – that doesn’t make any sense. That’s like me arguing that the number ‘23’ (for example) is bad because it didn’t come out of the lotto draw drum, causing me to lose my ‘bet’.

Immigrants came to this country because there were jobs to be filled. The fact that a very large percentage of those jobs were in construction and associated industries was our own collective doing, as the whole country went gaga for property. We could just as easily have created those jobs in high-value, home-grown industries had we invested our earnings more wisely, but we didn’t. Now, many of us have lost a fortune as the unsustainable ‘property economy’ blew up in our faces and we’re all looking for someone to blame besides ourselves for being stupid enough to pay €350k for a 2-bed semi-d in Ballygobackwards. Cue scapegoating.

Anyhow, this is getting off-topic. I’m not sure how the property boom relates to Turkey’s potential accession to the EU? Are we planning on having another property-fuelled Celtic Tiger in the event that Turkey becomes an EU member state?

sirromo

djpbarry wrote:

We could just as easily have created those jobs in high-value, home-grown industries had we invested our earnings more wisely, but we didn’t.

Really? You think we could have easily created tens of thousands of jobs in high-value, home-grown industries within the same space of time that it took us to inflate a massive housing bubble?

djpbarry wrote:

Anyhow, this is getting off-topic. I’m not sure how the property boom relates to Turkey’s potential accession to the EU? Are we planning on having another property-fuelled Celtic Tiger in the event that Turkey becomes an EU member state?

My objection to Turkey's entry into the EU is cultural rather than economic. For me, preserving our European culture and identity is as important as preserving our European standard of living. I just don't believe that we'll be able to admit tens of thousands of non-European muslims into our population and still expect to be as as culturally European in a hundred years from now. It won't be a once-off or short-term process either, granting the Turks the right to free-movement throughout the EU will result in a continuous yearly immigration of impoverished Turks to western Europe.

You just have to look at the problems the Germans have had in assimilating the Turks into their population to get an idea of what we can expect.

Scofflaw

sirromo wrote: »

Really? You think we could have easily created tens of thousands of jobs in high-value, home-grown industries within the same space of time that it took us to inflate a massive housing bubble?

I'm sure it would have taken rather more effort, but we could just as easily have chosen to go that route.

cordially,
Scofflaw

bonkey

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'm sure it would have taken rather more effort, but we could just as easily have chosen to go that route.

...with no guarantee of success.

One can choose to attempt to create high-value industry, but as with any industrial endeavour, there is no guaranteed recipe for success.