(Replying to PARENT post)

There's an interesting extension of this line of thought. My sister-in-law works in Istanbul for a Greek company. She says that most of the actual profit-generating work done for this company is done in Romania or Turkey. The Greek offices, from what she describes, are more or less completely dysfunctional.

Now, take that insight of conditions on the ground along with a chart of the growth of the Greek vs Turkish economies over the last decade, and then ask yourself: why is Greece a full EU member and included in the Eurozone, while Turkey's membership negotiations have completely stalled (and will probably conclude with Turkey not joining the EU)?

Can you imagine a world where Greece is allowed to leave the Euro, massively devalue its debt (and take the decade or more of restructuring/rebuilding its economy that would come with that), and Turkey with its strong manufacturing sector and youthful, growing middle class is brought in in Greece's place? The EU and the Euro would be in a far stronger position...but it will never happen. Unfortunately, European cultural prejudices are still to ever-present and will result in Greece continuing to be dragged along while Turkey gets shunned.

👤IdeaHamster🕑14y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Human rights are a factor, plus there's the fact that Turkey is a Muslim country, though many in the EU won't admit that. But even that could probably be overlooked if not for the fact that Turkey is a huge country. With a population of 73 million people (and a growing population, whereas many European states are stagnant in this regard), Turkey would immediately become the second-largest EU state, which means more members of the EU parliament than France or the UK and more voting power in those institutions where countries vote by weighted population.

If Turkey were a Muslim country with a European toehold and a history of dodgy human rights abuses but a general trendline towards democracy and it had a population of about 10 million, the EU would be falling all over itself to admit it and show how enlightened it was.

👤jfruh🕑14y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Regarding Turkey negotiations, I guess you know why.

Human rights issues ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Turkey ), Cyprus, death penalty.

👤tftfmacedo🕑14y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Turkey has grown strongly lately, but GDP/Capita is still 1/3 of Greece and 1/5 of Germany. I wish them all the best, but they are still a quite poor country. (and if you look at stuff like the acceptance of evolution (extremely low), an argument could be made that they are quite backwards too)
👤gahahaha🕑14y🔼0🗨️0