Turkey needs 15 more years

"The accession process will take another 15 to 20 years," writes Kai Strittmatter in the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on the new EU Progress Report on Turkey: "In 15 years Turkey will not be the Turkey it is today. It will grow far faster economically than all other EU countries. And we may be confident in the steps it is taking toward true democracy. That the country is 'structurally unfit for accession' as a member of the [conservative] CDU said on Wednesday, is nonsense. At the same time, a positive outcome of the EU talks is anything but in the bag. The old, undemocratic elite no longer has the power to shape the army, the bureaucracy or the judiciary - but it still has the power to sabotage. Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and the Turkish democrats need all the help they can get, and Europe must not withhold its support."

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