News: Turkey begins talks for admission to EU. This 40 year waltz is the central drama going on in Europe today. Recently with the French Non to EU Constitution, EU project has been plagued by self-doubts. This is further fueled by the different if not conflicting visions of the "Europe" designers.

One set of designers basic idea is that EU shall be a common economic entity, a global powerhouse which channels all its productive capacities to create wealth for its citizens, finds new markets, uses its collective economic power to bargain with other giants like US, China and (maybe) India. Such an entity will have a loosely centered political structure sharing common ideals such as freedom, human rights and democracy. It will provide a forum to dissolve intra-member disputes and credible means to face outside threats. Such an EU will be essentially civic and temporal where individual nations will share their sovereignties rather than diffusing it to create a supra-national empire.

The other set of designers share the goals of the first set, but argue that for this entity to thrive, it needs more cohesion at the cultural and emotional level layer below the expediency of economics. Some thinkers like Pope Benedict (in his poorvasrama as Cardinal Ratzinger) have gone beyond this politically correct language to argue for a "Christian" Europe. They point out that historically, successful institutions are founded on strong "cores". Then what shall be the core? Surely Europe cannot become a “nation”, say like Japan. Its history is replete with grave internal conflicts, hence the reach out to the wider core of Christianity. This does not mean EU’s governing structures is to be infused with the Word, though Benedict would like it, but socially and culturally a soft core of Christianity shall provide the cohesion. The spectrum of this group ranges from Jean Marie Le Pen to Angela Merkel, but the motivation is same. My assessment is that, the “market view” leaders in Europe like Mitterand and Kohl were content with the nationalists promoting EU by advocating this argument.

Now a vast, poor, Muslim Turkey has been knocking at the doors for 40 years, both these visions are facing a test. It was told that it has got to be democratic, then to abolish death penalty and then have a free market economy and then something else. It finally got tired of the lecturers from Brussels. No doubt about where the ultimate mercantilists the US of A stands on this. While trying to deny the formation of EU as a politically cogent entity, at the same time requiring EU to be as large a market as possible, having to keep Turkey inside NATO in the struggle against Islamist extremism leaves no option for USA but to support Turkey’s entry into EU. The High Priests of Common Sense, the British think, rather than letting Turkey stand outside and piss inside EU, it is better to keep it inside EU and have it piss outside. Sure, some of the piss is going to spill inside, but considering the amount of piss diverted outside it is a utilitarian compromise to keep Turkey inside EU.

Where does that leave the likes of Le Pen? Don’t get disappointed. The small fry Austria, which was almost thrown out of EU for allowing proto-Nazis like Joerg Haider into their government, was the most vociferous opponent of Turkey talks. It insisted and got Turkey to agree that "absorption capacity" shall be one of the criteria for entry. Interesting to note, 476 years ago this October, Vienna was under siege by the Turks. And they are crying what Turks failed to achieve by violence in Vienna, they will achieve peacefully in Luxembourg.