Sarkozy is wrong: Turkey deserves EU membership

In four years the Erdogan government has - under Brussels' supervision -streamlined the economy achieving steady annual growth of 5 percent or more and made more progress towards consolidating human rights than had ever been made in Turkey during her 80 years of 'secular' governance

Nicolas Sarkozy deserved to win. Dominating the TV debate with his rival he proved to be a leader who is courteous and decisive, knowledgeable and modest, keen on reforming France by consensus if possible without it if necessary.

Madame Royal, on the other hand, displayed outbursts of misplaced anger when she had her facts wrong; an irritating vagueness of purpose peppered with words of compassion for the dispossessed; a willingness to engage in "dialogue" about the issues on which she had no clear policy; but also a personal charm, sadly lacking in her ideological counterparts in Greece.

There was one issue, however, on which Nicolas Sarkozy was wrong. Seriously wrong.

"Turkey", he said, "can never enter Europe because she is part of Asia. Who can ever maintain that the EU should have borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran?" So said a man named after a 3rd-century saint born in Asia Minor, a believer in a religion founded by a man born way off Europe in Nazareth, and now a leader of a country belonging to a continent named after a Middle-Eastern beauty known as Europa - daughter of King Phoenix whose subjects discovered money and the alphabetical script.

Closer to our era, Turkey has been a member of the Council of Europe and, with France's approval, an associate member of the EC/EU for nearly half a century. As of October 2005 she has been negotiating to become a full member of the EU again with the approval of the French government of which Sarkozy himself was a prominent member. In fact, there is no Europe