How Young People See EU and Enlargement
Fourth Question Interpretation - EU and Turkey -Group work: Aita, Contin and Livon

We focused our attention on the fourth question which was about the possible entry of Turkey into EU.
In particular we analysed the pros and cons of the issue ith reference to the feedback of the interviewed.
The question posed was: “What do you think about the entry of Turkey into the European Union (pros and cons)?”.

We gathered 105 answers to the question chosen, into 4 schedules, paying attention to genre and average age. This distinction will be later useful in order to draw meaningful conclusions. The first schedule consists in a general overview of the total number of answers; in the second one we concentrated on three types of answers: favourable, unfavourable and those who were not sure; the remaining two explain in a detailed way pros and cons we have found analysing all the answers. We distinguished specific groups, such as cultural, economical, political and social “pros and cons”.

After having analysed all the answers given for the question chosen, we can say that the interviews were quite balanced, as a matter of facts there were 47 men and 58 women. Nevertheless the interviews could be done to people between 16 and 30 years old, the average age of the interviewed was nearly 23 years old, that is quite a young age.

As a result of our work we noticed that a great majority of people (40%) weren’t sure of what to say or simply didn’t answer to the question; in particular women seems to be less interested in European matters. Another 40% of the interviewed were unfavourable to the entry of Turkey into EU, with an average age older than the 20% of favourable people.

We found it very complex to organize pros and cons’ schedules, because of the large variety of responses. Doing this we realised that generally women were more pragmatic and gave us more precise answers, whereas men usually said only if they were favourable or not.

According to our schedule the most common pros suggested in the answers were related to economic, social and strategic advantages and the average age of those who answered in this way, was nearly 23 years.

Looking for the most common cons suggested in the answers, we singled out cons connected to the human rights violation, religious differences and economical difficulties. Those who suggested such precise cons were also the oldest ones: the average age of this group is 25 years.

At the end of our work we can summarise that there is a lack of information about EU in general and specifically about Turkey issue; the majority of answers were quite vague or in same cases people couldn’t express a personal opinion on this matter (generally young people couldn’t answer, this implies that EU is not sufficiently discussed both at school and in the public life). However, what strikes most our attention is that a great majority of interviewed is unfavourable about Turkey’s entry into EU, probably because of an ancient fears towards different culture like Muslim one.



Group Considerations

We would like to conclude our work with a negotiated view on the topic. At the moment it seems to be one of the hottest points of discussion on television and the media. we think both the entry of Turkey or a possible refusal by the EU, would be a milestone, for the future of Europe as well as for the entire globe. It represent a crucial event, whatever the decision: it could be interpreted as a diplomatic treaty between the Western world and the Middle-East or, if Turkey did not join EU, all hopes would disappear.

Moreover we think common people should be better informed on such an important issue. It follows that a referendum might not be the best option to follow inorder to understand if people generally approve of the entry of Turkey. To tell the truth we think it would be better for people not take important decision without a suitable level of knowledge and information about the matter. Therefore a referendum does not sound to us an effective means.

The interviews showed young people are very rarely interested in European matters at all and this provide an explanation for our negative idea of an eventual referendum which would probably be much influenced by stupid fears or prejudices.