"Incompatibility of cultures" is a slogan for "too dark-skinned" or "too muslim". From around '95 to 2005 Turkey was making excellent progrsss on all fronts. T

"Incompatibility of cultures" is a slogan for "too dark-skinned" or "too muslim". From around '95 to 2005 Turkey was making excellent progrsss on all fronts. They were as laicistic as the french, economically at least as competitive as Portugal was when they joined, had a generation of cosmopolitan entrepreneurs etc etc. They provably weren't ready for full membership, but a defined schedule with measurable checkpoints could have anchored the country in the EU. But Kohl & Mitterand didn't just have to say no, they had to do it the most disrespectful of ways: "you're culturally incompatible and you always will be". You'd think they could've at least looked at a map, maybe again some time in the fall of 2001 and thought "oh, what's that country? It'd be really useful if they'd work with us"