One of the interesting speculations of the day is Thomas Friedman's offhand note that if Turkey does not get an invitation to the EU that it should get an invite to NAFTA. The very idea of NAFTA encompassing even a sliver of European territory has got to have given the political elite of the EU the collective vapors. There have been past whispers about the US expanding NAFTA but usually to dissenting EU states like the UK. A Turkey in NAFTA offer would create a tug of war between the EU and the outside balkan states. Bulgaria, Romania, and the rest of the peninsula would be able to play off the two sides, one against the other to gain concessions in accession negotiations with both blocks.
All this in the pages of the europhile NY Times, by one of the media high priests of center-left foreign policy. The multipolar agitators of the EU might just now be figuring out how badly they've miscalculated.
Posted by TMLutas at January 12, 2004 11:25 PM