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On his first visit to the Turkish capital since becoming prime minister in May, 2010, David Cameron of the EU state of Britain likened the state of France’s opposition to Turkey’s bid join the EU to the French veto of Britain’s bid to become part of the EEC in the 1960s. I contend that his is a faulty comparison. Britian and Turkey do not occupy the same situs with respect to Europe. Notwithstanding the claim by some that not being on the contenent renders the British non-Europeans, Britain is in Europe. British culture is European. In contrast, only ten percent of Turkey is on the continent, and the Turkish culture is dissimilar to that in Europe.

Cameron also pointed to Turkey’s role in NATO, particularly with respect to the alliance's role in Afghanistan.  However, Turkey made it clear that it will not join EU sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Turkey does not have the same interests as do the states in Europe. For European leaders to essentially use Turkey as a state in order to have more influence in the Arab world is problematic. First, the Turks would not necessarily be welcomed by the Arabs as intermediaries, given the history and perceptions between the two groups. Secondly, the accession could force the EU to take an active role in resolving the Kurd issue in eastern Turkey (and northern Iraq). Rather than giving the Europeans more influence in the Middle East, having Turkey as a state could put the EU in a mire it can ill-afford, given its own challences within the current EU. In short, European strategic over-reaching could compromise what has been accomplished thus far in terms of European integration.


To add a very large Middle Eastern state to a union of European states would compromise, and perhaps buckle, the EU.  Already, the EU has struggled to make changes internally to accommodate its expansion to the east.  Turkey’s very different culture and interests could render the EU impotent, given the amount of power still being exercised by the governments of its states. Rather than use the EU to gain leverage in the Middle East, I recommend that Europeans solidify their “ever closer union” so it will be able to withstand the inevitable political storms in Europe.

As Britain is one of the more “euroskeptic” states in the EU, it is possible that Cameron made his statements in the hope that expanding the EU beyond Europe would effectively relegate the union into an international organization. As the EU stands now, it has an executive branch, a legislature (a Parliament and a Senate, or Council), and a supreme court (the ECJ).  From a euroskeptic standpoint, the EU’s government simply does not exist.  Admitting Turkey (and other non-European states) would make the EU more international and less of a federal union of governance. That is to say, the move would undo the EU.

To be sure, Britain is just one of 27 states in the EU. With regard to Turkey’s accession as the 28th state, 35 “chapter,” or subject areas, would need to be agreed on. As of July, 2010, only 13 had been opened and only one — research and development — had been provisionally concluded. Most of the rest were blocked — five by France — leaving the realistic prospect that only a further three could still be opened.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/world/europe/28iht-britain.html?_r=1&hp

On October 14, 2009, Charlie Rose interviewed John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of The Economist. The editor told Charlie that his publication supports Tony Blair as President of the European Council in the EU. The editor, by the way, is British. He said that “some ex-president” of a small EU State such as Luxembourg (i.e., a mere bureaucrat) could hardly stand toe to toe with Obama of the US and Hu of China. The editor obviously viewed the leaders of the large states of the EU as vastly superior to those of the small states. To be sure, it is difficult to view the UK and Luxembourg as being commensurate polities either in terms of land or population. Even so, as both of these polities are states in the EU, the prime minister of either ought to suitable to preside at the European Council.  Indeed, that intergovernmental body is akin to the U.S. Senate rather than to an entire government. Interestingly, as the editor was being interviewed, Joe Biden, who comes from one of the smallest States in the Union (i.e., Delaware), was President of the US Senate because he was elected as the Vice President of the US.

Although the President of the European Council is not President of the EU government as a whole and is thus not equivalent to the President of the United States, the editor did tacitly acknowledge by his comparison that the EU is commensurate with the US (and China). Both the US and EU are empire-scale unions of commensurate republics (large states in the US being roughly the same size as the large states in the EU); the British colonies in North America had been colonies in the Greek rather than the Roman sense--meaning one the same scale of the host kingdom rather than mere provinces.  Put another way, in being referred to as provinces, the colonies were so as provinces, or members, of the empire (Ireland being another member) rather than as provinces of a kingdom such as France.

That a large state in the EU used to be the host kingdom of an empire does not mean that that state is somehow equivalent to the Union of which it is a member (i.e., the EU) or to other Unions on the empire-scale such as the US.   To treat the UK as akin to the EU ignores the fact that Britain is a state in the EU.  By implication, to suppose Britain is superior to any other EU state is to commit a fallacious category mistake (i.e., conflating things of different levels or categories) in a way that unjustly distends or vaunts Britain.  In other words, being a host kingdom in an empire is commensurate to being a state in a union of republics that were (early modern) kingdoms; neither is equivalent to being an empire-scale polity consisting of such republics.

Imagine, if you will, New York claiming to be akin to the US or the EU simply due to a large population or land mass.   Such a claim can scarely be imagined, yet even small states in the EU are regularly treated as though they were commensurate with the US as a whole.  "In Romania we tend to eat X. What do you eat in the US?"  Well, it depends.  A Texan might talk of steak whereas a Maine man might refer to lobster.  The US is not like a European member state but with big territory; rather, the US is a union composed of states that are equivalent in scale to a European country. In spite of all this, the same person who views Britain as a third Union next to the EU and US would scoff at a similar statement made about New York.  It is precisely such illogical hypocrisy that is not seen on either side of the pond.

Strangely, the European editor of The Economist presumed in his interview with Charlie Rose there is some “Anglo-American” thing that likens his EU State to all of the American States (even those that had been French and Spanish colonies). He presumed that the commonalities in this axis are somehow greater than what Britain shares culturally with its sister states in the EU. C’est vraiment incroyable!  Even if parts of New England still have vestages of an English culture, this could hardly be generalized across the continent. New Mexico culture, for example, is overwhelmingly hispanic.  In actuality, the present-day US contains among its republics those that had been colonies of France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain, as well as Britain.  That is to say, the US is an empire-scale union of republics, and various cultural ingrediants went into those republics differentially.  An empire is, in other words, inherently heterogenious. 
I raise the case of the editor because it illustrates how people can get away with playing fast and loose with comparisons, especially where ideology and vested interests are involved. If I am correct in my analysis, cross-Atlantic comparisons are rife with category mistakes.  The practical significance of the problem include faulty conclusions (such as that there is a favorite food across the US) and missed opportunities to learn from each other (such as in contrasting the designs of the EU and US).

Sources:
http://www.charlierose.com/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/217090

EU member states have been thrashing out the details of the resolution to be presented to the UN in meetings in both Brussels and New York over the past few months in a bid to finalize a proposal which will lay out the details of the EU’s increased UN role which is intended to boost the bloc’s profile as an independent entity at international level. The draft reforms agreed by the EU member states – if approved – will give the EU the powers enjoyed by fully-fledged UN members, such as the right to make proposals and submit amendments, the right of reply, the right to raise points of order and the right to circulate documents. While there is no demand in the draft for a more prominent seating position for the EU, it is possible that the EU could be moved to the center of the UN’s assembly chamber. Wherever the EU is situated, additional seats alongside a new European UN ambassador will be made available for High Representative Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, and her staff. Experts believe that the creation of the EU role will not significantly enhance the bloc’s ability to influence policy at a UN level but will provide an opportunity to present the EU as a unified power on the international stage.

See: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5815035,00.html