Should Turkey Join the EU?

We recently started a new class called Global Political Economy and the topics have already led to some interesting discussions between classmates. The class is a combination of world history, current events, and political structure, and I get the sense that the goal is to make sure we know enough about what is going on and has gone in the world to give context to the international business environments we will face.

Each class starts off with an ungraded 25 question quiz on historical events in a country, region, or political body (so far we've had the United States, the European Union, China, and Sub-Saharan Africa) to test our knowledge of world history and world events, and then as we go through the answers we discuss the implications of those events. For example, some questions recenty were "Who initiated what came to be known as the Reformation and when?" (Answer: Martin Luther, 1500s), "The foundations of the European Community were laid by creating a common market in two key industry sectors. What were they?" (Answer: coal and steel), and "The EU recently lost a 16-year-old dispute with Latin American countries over which product?" (Answer: bananas). Embarrassingly, I did much better on the quiz about the EU than on the quiz about the US.

During the second half of class one day we discussed whether Turkey should join the EU. One point of view said that Turkey's population is growing so rapidly that if they do join they would soon become the country with the largest population and therefore the most votes, but also the most unpredictable and potentially unstable. A second argument stated that countries like Germany would see massive immigration of Turkish citizens that might tax the social system beyond its means.  A third argument said that it's a political issue, because most European politicians would have trouble getting re-elected on a pro-Turkey platform.

The other side of the argument pointed out that Turkey has a lot to offer in economic power, but especially in the youth of the country. The population in the EU is aging rapidly, and birth rates are not keeping up with this aging, meaning the EU will lose 100 million people in the next 50 years. By contrast, 40% of Turkey's population is under the age of 25, which means strong future purchasing power. The two Turkish members of our class gave their personal opinions, both in favor of joining, broken only by an emotionally charged voice from Greece retaliating with an argument that the recent coup d'etat attempt by the Turkish military should count against their stability and therefore their candidacy.  Turkey and Greece have a notoriously crisp relationship, and I was shocked to see it manifest itself so forcefully in the class discussion.

The class ended with a slight buzz of tension, but I found it exciting and stimulating to hear discussions on these controversial issues from the people it directly affects.