| France needs a cultural revolution to avoid becoming Frankistan. Your point? |
As a leading Turkish politician spoke of a "rocky" road ahead, the French president said that Ankara's membership talks could last up to 15 years and might fail. "Will [Turkey] succeed?" Mr Chirac asked at a press conference in Paris with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. "I don't know. I hope so but I'm not at all sure." His remarks were echoed by Ilter Turkmen, a former Turkish foreign minister, who told the Guardian: "There's no doubt that Turkey's path to the EU is going to be very rocky." Their honesty highlights the huge task facing Ankara.
Turkey has already undertaken big reforms, such as abolishing the death penalty and opening its market to European goods, which allowed the EU to open membership talks. Over the next decade, however, it will have to open every area of its public life to EU inspectors. Turkey will have to show that across the board it is matching, or at least making irreversible progress towards, EU levels.
It faces the toughest test of any aspiring EU country because of fears that Europe cannot absorb such a large and relatively poor country. There is also the unspoken fear of up to 100 million Muslims - the country's population will soar in the coming decades - joining the EU.
| Not that this has stopped the Euros from allowing tens of millions of Muslims into the currrent EU countries. |
Unlike any other country, however, Turkey is offered no guarantee that the talks will lead to full membership. It also faces the real threat that negotiations will be postponed or called off at a moment's notice. The EU can, for example, refuse to open chapters unless Turkey proves that it is up to scratch in that area.
| "Nope, nope, ain't ready, nope, nope." |
But Turkish officials accept that immense headway is still needed. Human rights violations and curbs on freedom of expression persist; crimes against women remain widespread, and discrimination against minorities is a fact of life. Last year Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, proposed criminalising adultery. Amid protests, this was dropped. An EU diplomat said: "It's our great fear that, under pressure from his traditional-minded support base, he could cave in again."
Most liberal Turks believe Mr Chirac was right to demand a "cultural revolution". Levent Korkut, of the Ankara branch of Amnesty International, said: "Across the bureaucracy the culture needs to change. Judges with very old mindsets remain a real problem. They need to be trained in EU laws, sensitised to human rights issues and stopped from always seeing national security as a priority."
With anti-EU feeling growing in Turkey, the task would be herculean for any government. Mr Erdogan, a devout Muslim with a pious following, could find it particularly hard. Many Turks already feel they have made too many concessions.
Added to this, says political commentator Cengiz Aktar: "Convincing the man in the street that Turkey is not a burden but an asset will be one of our biggest challenges. In the coming years, the most difficult issue will be for old Europe to mentally digest Turkey."