Turkey’s application for EU membership foundered on two obstacles. Otherwise, it would just be kicking the can down the road. Europe needs to offer a credible invitation to Turkey and Russia to join the EU if it wants a permanent end to the threats.
Russia’s Putin has done Erdogan one better and actually launched an irredentist war. Today, Turkey has virtually declared the Lausanne Treaty, which established its post-World War I boundaries, as inoperative and threatens to attack and ‘recover’ the Aegean Islands the treaty granted to Greece in 1922. Ruling out an invitation to Russia to join either NATO or the EU gave Vladimir Putin the opportunity to turn Russia into an authoritarian, revanchist, and irredentist state as well.
Refusal to play straight with Turkey when it first applied for membership enabled the rise to power of an authoritarian revanchist and irredentist Turkish leader, Recep Tayip Erdogan. Keeping Turkey and Russia out of the European Union perversely created the two biggest direct threats to the security of EU member states.
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