The EUnuchs and Turkey Begin Talking
Good news for the EUnuchs! Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had warned that the EUnuchs could end up being a "Christian club" if they did not start talks on Turk membership. Thank goodness that the talks are now on track. There are a couple of things wrong with the PM's analysis. First is the obvious, if you tally up church attendance in Europe (excluding Poland) it would be difficult to qualify anything in Europe as Christian. Second the region formerly known as Christendom seemed to do just fine after expelling the Moors from al-Andalus and standing up to the Ottomans in Vienna. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that intellectually, socially, politically and economically the Arab Islamic countries suffered a steep decline starting in the 15th century. If not for oil we would not even care about what went on in that part of the world. Anyway I digress, but if you want to read more about the "Christian club", the EU and the Turks pick up The Cube and the Cathederal. You can find a review here. It is a sparkling essay but it's point of view should come as no surprise since it is penned by a Catholic theologian. Obviously I've gone off on a tangent here so back to business...The trouble over the start of the Turkey talks was a roadblock thrown up by Austria. According to the WashTimes though, the US also had to sweet talk Turkey to agree to come to terms for the talks.
posted by theCardinal @ 6:04 AM
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A powerful argument for a common foreign policy in the EU appears today. An intelligence brief has been published: 'Turkey's Accession Divides the E.U.'. The brief can be accessed at PINR's main page, for now.
With regard to the future supplies of energy, the brief points out that EU enlargement to Turkey will "favor the creation of a bigger network of oil and gas pipelines designed to transport Caspian and Black Sea energy resources to the West under strong Anglo-American influence, as opposed to alternative energy strategies such as the new Russo-German projects."
The direction of EU enlargement seems to be heavily influenced by national politics within the EU at present; definitely an argument for urgently building a common foreign policy.
Interestingly, the European Commission is worried about energy security in the EU.
In a memo last month, the Commissioner for Energy set out various proposals to provide even more information to EU policy makers - in order to convince them to act promptly on energy. However he might be disappointed.
As a result, the UK is thinking about emergency plans. A report on Britain's energy future is referred to here:
>The "khaki cost" of defending the world's oil supplies would be $150 billion a year. "Without wishing to scaremonger... rapidly decreasing our dependency on oil and gas imports is a national imperative," the study says.<
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