Of course I’m ironic. If there is a present, it’s poisonous.

Although Turkey officially wants to join the EU, this country doesn’t recognise Cyprus, which is one of its members.



True, when Turkey applied, Cyprus was not a member.

Anyway, Cyprus will take over the rotating presidency in less than a month. And Turkey has said in the meantime that it freeze relations – either with the Cyprus presidency or with the EU. It even said it would annex Northern Cyprus – recognized worldwide only by Ankara.

Ankara says that it could inject some economic and demographic momentum to the EU if it joins.

True, the EU is in crisis, while Turkey is developing at good speed and it is great shape demographically. Sarkozy is gone, but François Hollande said the Turkish EU membership will not be on the agenda during his five-year mandate. Is this a surprise for Ankara? Probably not. The answer “would a two-speed Europe open more easily to Turkey” is no – that much we know today.

Turkey had tried to obtain a get visa-free regime with the EU’s visa-free Schengen space, without any success. If a candidate country is denied this minimum treatment, how can it believe promises for EU accession?

So Turkey has set up its own Sham-gen – it has opened its borders to a lot of countries in its region with which the EU has a very strict visa regime. Now people from these countries go to Turkey only to cross the border with Greece and get on EU soil.

So Cyprus will have – not to manage – because it doesn’t work this way since the Lisbon treaty – but to preside over the exit from Greece from Schengen. Or worse, over the Schengen disbanding.

Greece may leave the eurozone, I don’t know. If this would have to happen, it would be largely this country’s own fault. But on Schengen, it’s Turkey’s populist AKP government which is deliberately destroying Schengen, one of the pillars of this EU which refused its membership.

Onlara katılmak yapamıyorsanız, onları yok. If you cannot join them, destroy them.

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Author : Georgi Gotev