Foreign Correspondence

[CoalTrain]

France blocks Turkey's path

Looks like France is taking Turkey out of the EU picture. Again Paris siding with Moscow and the Slavic speaking Anti Anglo bloc in the Balkans. Expect that again. Will EU still exist in 2007? One reason the next multi year advance of gold stock buying will be intense IMO is that there is a good chance that in Europe the public at large will become concerned that the Euro wont last many more years. The fantasy that has been EU wont fall apart in the next few weeks but I think we have seen the peak and in stock terms we are looking at a topping process. The interesting thing about EU is that since it was never clearly defined when things dont work they just keep on making up more B.S. Expansion of "ties" in the intermediate to long term will probably having increasing military language and less trade related language. JMO

Nicholas Watt in Luxembourg
Tuesday June 14, 2005
The Guardian

Turkey was being set up as the main casualty of French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution last night when France seemed to put the brakes on Ankara's 40-year dream of joining the union.
As European leaders prepared to kick the constitution into the long grass at their summit this week, the French foreign minister said it would be difficult to admit Turkey if the measure falls.

Philippe Douste-Blazy told the French daily Le Figaro: "Without the treaty, it seems to me difficult to add more countries when the rules of communal living between us are not clearly defined. It is one of the elements of the absorption capacity of the European Union. After the French referendum, we must reflect on this type of thing."

Britain, which has championed Turkish membership in the face of opposition from political leaders in France and Germany, is determined to press ahead with accession talks on October 3.
Without the constitution, however, it will be difficult for Turkey to join because the EU is limited to 27 members under the "fall back" procedures of the Nice treaty. The EU will reach this number when Romania and Bulgaria join in 2007.

The challenge facing Turkey was highlighted yesterday when EU enlargement was at one point omitted from a draft statement which European leaders will issue at the end of their summit this week.