Interesting Links for 18-03-2016

[andrewducker]

Sugar tax: What is the UK's most sugary drink? (tags: sugar drinking uk tax ) Reality Check: How soon can Turkey join the EU? (tags: turkey eu ) Why Osborne’s sugar tax is half baked (tags: sugar tax uk viaPatrickHadfield ) What's going on with the UK and sin taxes? (tags: tax uk viaPatrickHadfield ) I have never wanted to be Taylor Swift more

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I'm in general in favour of Turkey joining the EU.

However, I think the EU is more than just a customs union or a free trade area. It's a political union of liberal (and social) democracies. So we ought not to let Turkey join until it has firmly re-established itself as a democracy. For me I think that requires it to stop doing what its currently doing, reverse course and to do that joyfully for, probably, a decade.

I also think the EU has probably fudged the admittance criteria for some of the newer member states. Which was probably okay with small countries like Romania and Bulgaria. It's probably not okay with a country the size of Turkey. Which is difficult for Turkey because it basically has to turn itself in to more or less a Western European economy without actually being a member of the EU.

Thirdly, the Turks need to sort out what they are doing with both the Kurds and the Cypriots. The Kurds because the EU already contains its full quota of seccionists guerrillas and bringing in a group as proficient at irregular violence as the Kurds is not a good idea. It did not work well for the last Roman Empire. The Cypriots because, well mostly because, with Greece and Cyprus already in the EU we've pretty much chosen our side in the disagreement over Cyprus.

I think admitting them now (for a given value of now) would be a disaster for them and for us. Even pretending that we'll seriously consider their application until they've sorted out the first and third items risks letting them think they can continue to be a theocratic authoritarian tyranny fighting a small war and get the goodies.

So, I don't see how we can seriously talk to Turkey about joining the EU for about a decade.

[skington]

Also, if we say "hey Turkey, it's cool, you can join despite having not much in the way of rule of law or internal democracy", that just emboldens Hungary.

Oh, and gives Marine Le Pen a few boatloads of additional votes.

[danieldwilliam]

Yes, that also.

[andrewducker]

I agree. I think that the potential for them to join should be there, but it should be based on their actual suitability to do so, and not on momentary gain.

[danieldwilliam]

I'd go a bit further than that. We  (the EU) should be actively seeking Turkish membership and working with them to get them ready for a successful membership.