Die endlose Tuerkei-Debatte

The article shows that reservations in Europe against Turkey's future membership are really groundless. A Muslim nation already was a member of the EU: Algeria. When Algeria was still a colony, it joined the EU (then: European Economic Community) on January 1st 1958 as a French "Departement", and it remained so until its independence in 1962. The now famous Copenhagen criteria obviously did not apply at that time: 400.000 French troops fought a colonial war against the local population. Are Muslims in the European Union only welcome as a colonized people? The dossier presented brings up to date earlier materials published on the subject by the same author. There are new sections on the situation of women at the time of the beginning of the negotiation process for each of the 25 EU members based on United States Department of State materials, as well as time series comparisons of gender politicies in the EU 25, and in the candidate countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. Of course, the tasks ahead are still very large, including in the field of gender policies, but Turkey should in no way be excluded from the start of membership negotiations.