Up to now, not once has Turkey’sPresident R. T. Erdoğanexpressed a possibility of organizing a national referendum on Turkish membership to the European Union (the EU), which raises many questions of different nature, followed by old and new problems.

To read this article in the following languages, click theTranslate Websitebutton below the author’s name.

Türkçe, Farsi, Русский, Deutsch, Español, 中文,Portugues,Français, عربي, Hebrew, Italiano, 日本語,한국어, Српски. And 40 more languages.

A current EU political concern is reflected in many controversial issues, and one of those the most important is about whether or not to accept Turkey as a full member state (being a candidate state since 1999).

Turkey is, on one hand, governed as a secular democracy by moderate Islamic political leaders, seeking to play the role of a bridge between the Middle East and Europe. However, Turkey is, on the other hand, an almost 100% Muslim country with a rising tide of Islamic radicalism (especially since the 2023 Israeli aggression on Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Gazans), surrounded by neighbors with a similar problem.

There are two fundamental arguments by all of those who are opposing Turkish admission to the EU:

1) Muslim Turkish citizens (70 million) will never be properly integrated into the European environment that is predominantly Christian; and

2) In the case of Turkish accession, historical clashes between the (Ottoman) Turks and European Christians are going to be revived.

Here we will refer only to one statement against Turkish accession: it “would mean the end of Europe” (former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing) – a statement which clearly reflects the opinion by 80% of Europeans polled in 2009 that Turkey’s admission to the EU would not be a good thing. At the same time, there are only 32% of Turkish citizens who had a favorable opinion of the EU, and, therefore, the admission process, for which formal and strict negotiations began already in 2005, is very likely to be finally abortive.

The question of Turkish admission to the EU is, by the majority of Europeans, seen through the glass of Islamic fundamentalism as one of the most serious challenges to European stability and, above all, identity that is primarily based on Christian values and tradition. Islamic fundamentalism is understood as an attempt to undermine existing state practices for the very reason that militant Muslims (like ISIS/ISIL/DAESH) are fighting to re-establish the medieval Islamic Caliphate and the establishment of theocratic authority over the global Islamic community – the Umma. Nevertheless, religious fundamentalism first came to the attention of the Western part of the international community in 1979 when a pro-American absolute monarchy was replaced with a Shia (Shiia) Muslim anti-American semi-theocracy in Iran. In other words, Iranian Shia Muslim clerics, who were all the time the spiritual leaders of the Iranians, became their political leaders too. The Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979 prompted possibilities of similar uprisings in other Muslim societies, followed by pre-emptive actions against them by other governments.

Source: Global Research