ANKARA/BRUSSELS: “Don’t treat us like tiny Slovenia or Estonia — we are Turks, we are different”. That is at least part of the message from Turkey to the EU as it prepares for the start of membership talks on Oct. 3; and few would argue Turkey is indeed a special case.

Though Ankara will be expected during its talks to adopt the same laws as the 10 mostly ex-communist countries which joined the EU in 2004, both Turks and Europeans seem more focused on the contrasts between the two enlargements than on parallels.

“There will be more differences than similarities (with Turkey’s talks),” said Marek Grela, Polish ambassador to the EU.

“Negotiations in the previous round of enlargement were about ending Cold War-era divisions in Europe, about finally removing the Iron Curtain, about reuniting a family.”

“The negotiations with Turkey will be about moving the EU’s frontiers beyond Europe...They will test the limits of the EU, what it is, what it can become,” Grela added.

Turkey will also have to contend with a more hostile public mood in Europe towards enlargement.

“The history of enlargement negotiations show that the EU is increasingly strict towards candidate countries. It will be still stricter with Turkey,” said Antonio Missiroli of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think-tank.

Turkey itself evokes feelings of unease among Europeans.

A secular but overwhelmingly Muslim country, Turkey is part-Balkan, part-Mediterranean, part-Middle Eastern in character and counts Iran, Iraq and Syria among its neighbours.

With 72 million people and growing, Turkey’s population is roughly equal to that of all 10 countries combined which joined the EU last year. By the time it joins, at least 10 years hence, it will have overtaken Germany to be the biggest member state.

Turkey is also poorer than the east Europeans. True, its economy is the world’s 20th largest and was worth more than $300 billion last year. The EU is awash with fridges, cookers, textiles and cars produced in Turkey.

But its average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita remains less than 30 per cent of the EU average, just behind Bulgaria and Romania which hope to join the bloc in 2007.

This compares with about 40 per cent for the states which began entry talks in 1998 and joined the bloc in 2004.

But statistics are only part of the story. Turkish attitudes have been shaped by a very different historical experience.

Proud heir of the Ottoman Empire which once spanned three continents, Turkey has never been a colony and has never had to share sovereignty with others.

By contrast, most central and eastern European countries took their orders from Moscow for decades until 1989.

“Please don’t compare us with Slovenia or Estonia. We can go it alone (outside the EU) if we have to,” the diplomat said.

Turks have long had an ambiguous love-hate attitude towards Europe, coveting its economic prosperity and rule of law but fearing it might erode national independence. Nationalists even accuse the EU of wanting to break up the country by fomenting separatism.

Veteran Nato member Turkey also feels aggrieved that the EU rushed to admit ex-enemies from the eastern bloc after the fall of communism in 1989 while shunning Ankara, even though it had been knocking on Europe’s door since 1963. —Reuters