TURKS IN EUROPE
MIROSŁAW PIOTROWSKI
Over 3 million of Turkish diaspora live in Germany, who do not integrate with the German society to a large extent
When nearly 12 years ago I started work in European Parliament, one of the most important problems was Turkey. At that time we voted in Strasburg in relation to a document connected with the matter of negotiation progress and accession of this country into the European Union. I remember when a German euro-deputy from the biggest political group had come up to me before voting to ask me to submit a request about the so-called secret ballot, that is, secret voting, on behalf of my, smaller group. It is an admissible rule, due to which it is not possible to check, after voting, whether a particular euro-deputy had voted ‘for’, ‘against’ or sustained from voting. It is only written that he had voted. Well, my German colleague wanted to vote against Turkey, but he wanted electors in Germany not to find out about it. I fulfilled his request. He thanked me not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of other euro-deputies. In fact it was and still is a sign of a kind of political schizophrenia, lined with a rigid pragmatism. For, membership in EU was officially promised to Turkey, but in practice, there was no attempt to fulfill this promise. A lot of European countries, like Belgium, Holland and, first of all, Germany, struggle with the problem of the Turkish minority on their territories every day.
Over 3 million of Turkish diaspora live in Germany, who do not integrate with the German society to a large extent. There are often attitudes hostile towards Germany, also among Turkish artists or pseudo-artists. So far German politicians have blocked the march of Turks to Europe. The situation changed after the unsuccessful decision of chancellor Angela Merkel in relation to migrants. The price for it is the agreement EU-Turkey, which has just been implemented. However, there is one very important point of this agreement which is hardly emphasized and which is included in the magic phrase ‘visa liberalization’ for Turks. It means that all EU countries agreed to abolishment of visas for Turks from June this year, that is, in three months. Every citizen of Turkey , and there are over 75 million of them, will be able to arrive in Europe without any formalities. In fact a lot of them think that Turkey is a European country, as 3 per cent of its territory is in Europe and only 97 per cent in Asia. However, there is a problem with following the so-called European values by Turkey, like such details as: freedom of speech, human rights and tolerance. But maybe not such tolerance as it comes out from the Turkish band ‘Osmanen Germania’, that is, ‘Ottoman Germany’, where Catholics are called ‘junkies from Caritas’.
AA
„Niedziela” 16/2016