Moderator:    Well thank you those are terrific presentation and you know that in events of these kind the moderator usually takes the privilege of asking the first questions and what that really means is that they are afraid that if they don’t ask the first question they are not seen as doing their job. So it’s more like an obligation, sometimes you prefer lets jut ask the audience. So let me ask the first question here and actually I have been doing a fair amount of research lately on European Muslin minorities and the relationship between minority communities and government and this is probably the most controversial and an important issue from a European social perspective. I mean this is what the Europeans talk about all the time. And I believe that the obstacles to Turkey’s accession to the EU are really not driven by state level factors.

I mean it’s true that there are factors or changes of a balance of power within the EU and all of that and what I thinks is really driven by cultural and social consideration, and I can’t help noticing that Europe excuse me that Turkey was a candidate for EU membership long before east European counties came on the scene. And now we se e that former members of the Warsaw pact are all in the EU but not all of them but not most of them and not Turkey. And the reality is that was blocking Turkeys entrance into the EU is a suspicion on the part of some sectors of European public opinion that Turkey is really not European even though as matter of fact Turkey has been part of the European system of states at least since the middle or late Ottoman period. So again my question is. Some think these factors are going to change and in fact there seems to be increasing synophobia in Europe and we see for example the Swiss ban on [IB] the French proposal to ban [IB] and all of this is a reaction, the very showing of the anti-immigration party in the Netherlands and there is an anti-immigration party that is now part of the Danish government so we have al of these reactions going on and my question I that even thought objectively speaking you could say that Turkish foreign policy is compatible with European foreign policy.

Whether the appearance of turning to the east of a more Islamic emphasis within, in Turkish foreign policy, not only just in Turkish foreign policy but in attitude you see that pro Hamas demonstrations in Istanbul for example whether this is not the reinforcing this negative perceptions in Europe that might again create greater hindrances to what in the end I think we all believe to be necessity which is Turkey; entrance into the European Union. And what if anything could be done about it. That’s a tough question but there you have it?

Joshua Walker:    I’ll let you start yeah.

Juliette Tolay:    Yeah that’s indeed a tough question on general the question of immigration especially Muslim immigration in Europe I would definitely define it as one of the top issues for Europe and one that Europe is not, Europe is actually not doing as bad it sounds because there are a lot of success but kind of what is being covered in the media and the kind of the fears that are really expressed on a daily basis it is very worrisome issue on that. I would actually argue but this is maybe something I could talk later but Turkey can actually help Europe deal with, but this is a slightly different issue. The idea that these issues are kind of one of the main obstacles of Turkish accession to the EU is I think true but only for certain countries, it is mainly true for Germany the Netherlands Austria, maybe France, maybe Italy, but we are talking about here five or six countries and the EU has about 27 countries and the other countries don’t really have this view, this same problem with migration or at least they don’t tie it so directly with this issue of Turkey.

So I think it is important to see it but it’s not a completely EU wide problem it’s actually more restricted to a couple of countries even though they tend to be the most important one. Which all lead to this whole idea is Turkey a really European or not and are this kind of this objective criteria that could help us decide if Turkey is culturally European or not and I think I a little bit of wrong question because culture is not kind of a, is not something fixed in time, like there are a lot of arguments to argue that Turkey is European there are a couple of arguments also trying to argue that it is not European. This is not so much a matter of what it is, it is more a matter of choice that Europe wants to be, the type of Europe which is inclusive and doesn’t have the kind of the close understanding of identity which actually is kind of the same kind of closed nationalist understanding of identity that created some problem not so long ago in Europe or doesn’t want to be this more inclusive, not so much controlled project but more kind of a political and based on values. And this I really a choice that it’s going to be made the main problem especially in this countries we are talking about is leaders tend to not really play the role of leaders. They tend to just follow a public opinion which is really worried especially in terms of economic crisis, the first scapegoat to become to the immigrant and leaders are just capitalizing on that instead of trying to shaping public opinion in a much more positive and better way.