The experience, and the food, inoculated me with a sense of well-being before I entered the rally. Despite its cosmopolitan joie de vivre, the cafe was unmistakably and incorruptibly French.. A sharp downturn in the European Union’s relations with Turkey is expected to figure prominently in discussions this weekend among the EU’s 15 foreign ministers at the Dutch town of Apeldoorn. As Turkey presses its demands for inclusion in the EU, an open split has developed between those EU countries which say the Turks should never become members and others, including Britain and France, which reject so rigid a stance. The disagreement has begun to affect EU relations with the United States.

US ambassadors in Europe recently received instructions to warn EU governments that the US had “very strong views” on the desirability of keeping EU membership open to Turkey.
However, the view that Turkey’s European identity should ultimately find expression in EU membership is clearly anathema in several continental capitals. Last week the leaders of Christian Democratic and centrist parties from Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain bluntly declared that Turkey should not be a candidate for joining the EU even in the long term.France quickly dissociated itself from the declaration “It is important for the stability of … Europe that the Turks retain a European prospect, even if we know that membership would not be realistic in the short term,” said France’s European Affairs Minister, Michel Barnier.That view is broadly shared in Britain, which does not agree with some EU countries that Turkey’s Islamic faith and heritage should disbar it from membership. “There is a very serious worry in the EU about the way the relationship with Turkey has deteriorated in the last few months,” one British official said.

“But we say the main obstacle is not cultural or religious, it is the sheer financial and economic set of problems that early Turkish membership would cause. It is a very big country and very backward by EU standards.”Hence Britain distinguishes between Turkey, which it says should be treated as a member of the European family and an eventual contender for EU admission, and central and eastern European states such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. British support for EU membership for the latter countries is unqualified.To accommodate Turkish aspirations, France is proposing a “European conference” that would bring together EU members with those states excluded from the formal accession negotiations expected to open next year. Turkey would be included in the “conference” group as proof of the EU’s commitment not to leave it in the cold.Whether this will be enough to appease the Turks is another matter.