Turkish Accession to the EU

The spectre of Turkish accession to the EU continues to loom ever larger. Even though the French and German governments are at this moment opposed to it, they seem to have been unable or unwilling to stop it. All they have done is slow it down. In July 2009 another chapter of the accession negotiations, the 11th out of 35, was opened. The Swedish EU presidency has begun. Sweden has been embarrassingly eager to welcome the Turks into the EU and plans to push the issue forward. Countries like Britain, Italyand Greece are completely in favour of Turkish accession.

EU Socialist group already explicitly support Turkish accession.

After Lisbon, the Ever Closer union is also an Ever Expanding Union, taking in more and more countries.
Just as the Treaty of Nice facilitated the entry and free movement of many people from the new states of Eastern Europe, we are now told that Lisbon will facilitate even further enlargement.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president last June said, "No Lisbon [Treaty], no enlargement,". He added that "the Nice Treaty limited the EU to a membership of 27 states."

Asked whether she agreed with Sarkozy's "No Lisbon, no enlargement" comment, Merkel said the EU's existing institutional arrangements limited the size of the bloc to its current 27 members.

"I agree because the Nice Treaty limited the (European) Union to a membership of 27 states and for me it is unthinkable that we would change one area of the Nice Treaty without looking at the whole of the Lisbon treaty," she said in Brussels.

Both Sarkozy and Merkel have said that Lisbon is a prerequisite for Enlargement of the EU, so the Turkish issue is very pertinant to this debate.
We need a legally binding assurance in advance of Lisbon vote that Turkey will not be admitted to the EU.
We need to define the limits of eastward expansion of the EU BEFORE the Treaty of Lisbon is passed

Those who care about the future of Europe, and see Turkish accession as an economic threat to the potential of Irish farmers, are going to have to mobilise to stop this nightmare from becoming real. Farmers must vote No to Lisbon. To quote Frits Bolkestein, the internal market commissioner in 2004:

"After Turkish entry the EU will simply be unable to sustain its current agricultural and regional policy. Europe would implode."

There is a blog about Turkish acccession.