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"Poland's former president and Nobel laureate Lech Walesa has insisted that Turkey must be admitted to the European Union
"There's no Europe without Turkey," Walesa told AFP in an interview. "Turkey should gradually reach Europe's level of development and enter tomorrow," he added.
Though in the pipeline for much longer Turkey's EU application was accepted in 2005. Since then -- mainly because of French and German opposition -- the process has been a slog.
Recently progress has seemed to speed up, pro-Turkey Spain was successful in opening a further 1 of the 37 chapters during its presidency of the EU, and Poland is to take over the Presidency in the second half of 2011, undoubtedly with the intention of making further progress.
During the last overseas property boom, many nations saw demand for property from foreign buyers spike as they entered the final stages of accession, and then became full members of the EU. Turkey's EU membership has also been given as a reason to recommend investment in property in Turkey.
Since then we have had the credit crunch, and a Turkish economy rebounding far strongly than that of its EU counterparts. During this, EU membership has become less necessary for Turkey. Nevertheless, many people will still be reluctant to buy property in Turkey until it becomes a member of the EU -- especially with property buyers so adverse to risk as they currently are.
