Comment & Debate
Tom Spencer. “GOOD REASONS FOR SAYING NO TO TURKEY”. http://www.publicaffairs.ac. August 19th, 2004 – “The admission of Turkey to the Union would take up political energies that should more properly be used in completing the unification of Europe by admitting the states of South Eastern Europe with their predominately Orthodox tradition. The Emperor Diocletian’s split is still visible in the order in which we are admitting East and Central Europe to the Union: Catholic and Protestant states first. The American strategist Thomas Barnett has an elegant model dividing the world into the Core, which has accepted globalisation, and a Gap which remains resistant to globalisation and covers much of the Arab world and Sub-Saharan Africa1. He points out that the most interesting recent development is the enlargement of the Core by countries such as Russia, China and India. One can draw a similar model for the European Union where the original Core has been joined by the states of the recent enlargement, but where many of the countries of South East Europe display the Gap-like characteristics of failed or failing states. Europe’s most pressing mission should be to close this ‘Balkan Gap’ with its attendant violence and criminal activity.”