The Spectator

Open the gates of Vienna

It's time to talk turkey about expanding the EU eastwards

issue 18 September 2004

The chief recruiting sergeant for al-Qa’eda is not George W. Bush but Frits Bolkestein, the Dutch EU internal market commissioner. Speaking last week on the possibility of Turkey joining the EU — and thus Muslims one day coming to outnumber Christians within it — Mr Bolkestein commented that were this to come to pass ‘the liberation of Vienna in 1683 would have been in vain’.

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