If only it were that easy

SHUT up, please, you are not helping. That, with respect, would be Charlemagne’s advice to America’s foreign-policy establishment, as its big guns nag the European Union into admitting Turkey swiftly, so as to anchor Turks to “the West”.

闭嘴吧，你们是在帮倒忙。这就是查理曼对美国外交当局的建议，但绝无不敬之意。美国外交界的大人物们喋喋不休，催促欧盟出于将土耳其拴在西方阵营的目的迅速接纳土耳其入盟。更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

It is no pleasure to offer such advice. Successive American governments have been right to say that EU membership for Turkey—a dynamic, officially secular, youthful Muslim nation, sitting astride vital trade and energy routes—is in the strategic interests of Europe. The very process of negotiating membership has promoted reform inside Turkey. Americans are right that such advances are imperilled when leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy of France say Turks have no place in the EU. Americans are also right to point out that EU leaders have already pledged to admit Turkey if it meets a long list of legal requirements.

查理曼提出如此建议实为不得已之策。土耳其横跨欧亚大陆，是重要的贸易和能源通道，宪法规定政教分离。这样一个年轻而充满活力的穆斯林国家加入欧盟，完全符合欧洲的战略利益，历届美国政府的这一观点无疑完全正确。正是入盟资格的谈判进程促进了土耳其的内部改革。一些领导人，如法国的萨科齐等说出土耳其在欧盟没有位置这样的话，这种进步就面临危险，美国人对此的判断同样完全正确。美国还指出，欧盟领导人已经承诺，如果土耳其达到长长一系列法律要件的要求，将接纳其为欧盟成员国。美国人的这一做法无可指责。

For all that, American voices accusing Europe of losing Turkey are guilty of oversimplification, and of ignoring what a big deal Turkish membership of the EU would be. The chorus comes from all sides. Visiting London last week, Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, was asked if recent Turkish actions over Gaza and Iran’s nuclear programme signalled a country “moving eastward”. If Turkey is heading east, Mr Gates mused, perhaps it is being pushed by some in Europe “refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.”

尽管如此，美国指责欧洲正在失去土耳其的批评还是犯了把问题过于简单化的错误，忽视了对欧洲人而言土耳其加入欧盟是多么重大的一件事情这个事实。压力来自四面八方。上周在伦敦的访问过程中，美国国防部长罗伯特•盖茨被问及土耳其最近对加沙和伊朗核计划的举动是否是该国“向东转”的信号。盖茨先生若有所思地回答说，如果土耳其向东靠拢，那也很可能是由于欧洲“拒绝了土耳其寻求与西方建立紧密联系”的做法所导致的结果。

In a new paper for the Turkish arm of the Open Society Foundation, a liberal pressure group, the Democratic politician Howard Dean is blunter. If some EU leaders are proposing a mere “privileged partnership” for Turkey rather than full EU membership, says Mr Dean, it is because they are trying to assuage “increasing xenophobia” at home, or even making “a bald and shameful political attempt” to recruit far-right voters. Comparing European integration to the birth of America, Mr Dean generously offers some advice: if EU citizens are in a funk, the emergence of pan-European political parties and direct elections for an EU president would be “very helpful”.

开放社会基金会（Open Society Foundation）是一个奉行自由主义的压力集团，民主党政治家霍华德•迪安（Howard Dean）在新近写给该基金土耳其分支机构的一篇文章中直言不讳。迪安在文章中写道，如果一些欧盟领导人提议只给与土耳其“特殊伙伴关系”地位而不是完全的欧盟成员国资格，其原因不过是他们试图平息国内“日益增长的仇外情绪”，甚至赤裸裸地包含着争取极右翼选票这样令人感到可耻的政治图谋。在将欧洲的一体化与美国的诞生进行了一番比较后，迪安先生慷慨地提供了一些建议：如果欧盟公民感到恐慌，泛欧政党的出现和欧盟总统直选制度将会“非常有用”。

From Yale, Walter Russell Mead, a foreign policy grandee, this month suggested Turkey should offer to give up immediate membership of the EU in exchange for a firmer pledge of eventual success, and, in the short term, a voice in EU decision-making.

外交政策领域的大腕人物沃尔特•罗素•米德（Walter Russell Mead）本月从耶鲁大学传出声音，建议土耳其立刻放弃成为欧盟成员国的申请，作为交换条件，欧盟应作出更坚定的承诺，保证土耳其最终能够成为欧盟的一员，并在短期内给与土耳其参与欧盟决策的资格。

Some of these gripes have a point. EU leaders like Mr Sarkozy and Angela Merkel of Germany are playing to their electoral bases when they question Turkey’s fitness to join, and many of their core supporters think Turks too foreign (or too Muslim) for the club. But the Turkey question cannot be reduced to racism.

美国所发出的这些抱怨也不是全无道理。像法国的萨科齐和德国的默克尔这样一些欧盟领导人正在同他们的选民进行着博弈，而这些选民对土耳其加入欧盟是否合适抱有疑问，在他们的核心支持者中有许多人认为土耳其人与欧洲人差异太大（或者说他们过于穆斯林化）。但是，土耳其的问题不能简单归结为种族主义。

For one thing, in urging Europe to fight any eastward drift in Turkish diplomacy, Mr Gates risks conflating EU membership with support for American policy in the Middle East. After all, several European nations strongly dislike the current Israeli government and are unconvinced by sanctions on Iran: the West is a complex block. Talk of immediate membership is nonsense: even Turkey’s friends know it will take at least ten years. Some areas are stalemated: the EU has frozen several chapters of the talks, and Turkey refuses to recognise Cyprus, an EU member state.

为敦促欧洲阻止土耳其“向东转”的外交趋势，盖茨先生首先要冒将欧盟成员资格问题与支持美国的中东政策混为一谈的风险。毕竟，有几个欧洲国家非常反感以色列现政府，对伊朗的制裁也感到颇不以为然。西方国家就是这样一个复杂的组合体。立即给与土耳其欧盟成员国资格被认为是无稽之谈，甚至土耳其的友好国家也都认为这将需要至少10年的时间才行。在某些领域谈判还陷入僵局，欧盟冻结了好几个谈判回合。土耳其拒绝承认塞浦路斯，而塞浦路斯是欧盟成员国。

It is not only xenophobes who see the prospect of EU membership for Turkey as daunting. Joining today’s union is not like entering the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). American pundits might like to try the following two thought experiments, based on real-life EU instruments, and imagine how, with Mexico playing the part of Turkey, they would sell either to American voters.
不仅是排外者对土耳其入盟的前景感到害怕。加入现今的欧盟可不像加入北美自由贸易协定（NAFTA）那样简单。美国学者们不妨在基于现实欧盟法律的条件下参与以下两个思维实验，想像一下墨西哥如果扮演了土耳其的角色，这将给美国选民带来如下两个后果。

First, imagine a NAFTA single market, with legal powers to ban congressional aid intended to stop a Detroit car factory moving to Mexico. If Congress persisted, NAFTA competition authorities could send the American government to be fined by Mexican, American and Canadian judges at the NAFTA court. The EU already does this.

首先，想像一下北美自由贸易协定产生的单一市场，如果底特律的汽车工厂要迁往墨西哥，国会想要阻止这件事却毫无办法，因为法律禁止这样做。如果国会坚持进行阻止，北美自由贸易协定的竞争管理当局就可能判决美国政府向墨西哥缴纳罚款，而美国和加拿大的法官们就坐在这个法院的审判席上。欧盟已经这样做了。

Second, consider a NAFTA arrest warrant, based on “mutual recognition”, ie, the principle that a Mexican court’s ruling is as valid as one from Ohio. A New Yorker accused of a serious crime (a drunken rape in Cancún, say) could not fight extradition on grounds of poor Mexican police work, but would have to be shipped promptly to Mexico for trial. Because the EU arrest warrant already exists, Europeans have a right to fret about Turkish courts.

其次，再考虑一下基于“相互承认”原则下北美自由贸易协定的逮捕状制度，换言之，任何一个墨西哥法院的裁决其合法性如同俄亥俄州发出的一样。一个纽约人如果被控犯有严重罪行（比如说在坎昆喝醉了酒而犯下强奸罪），就无法借口墨西哥警方的工作差劲而逃避引渡，可能会被直接带到墨西哥受审。由于欧盟统一的逮捕状下达制度已经存在，欧洲人有权对土耳其法院的状况感到焦虑不安。

It took us thousands of years to get here
我们用了几千年时间才走到眼下这一步

Americans who compare their two centuries of union to the six decades of European integration may think they are paying Europe a compliment. But it often comes across as condescension. Yes, it took America a while to form a federal government and issue a common currency, and America did fight a civil war. But European differences, whether of language, religion or history, go back millennia. Europe’s conflicts were not civil wars.

美国人将他们两百年的联邦历史与欧洲60年的一体化进程进行比较，可能会认为他们是在恭维欧洲人。但欧洲人往往将之视为屈尊而受。事实也是如此，美国人确实是花了一段不短的时间才组成一个联邦政府和发行了共同的货币，而美国人确实也打了一场内战。但欧洲人不同，无论是语言、宗教还是历史，都可回溯千年。而欧洲的矛盾也没有引发内战。

On numerous measures, Europe is more diverse than America. Per-capita wealth in Mississippi, the poorest state, is almost two thirds the national average. But the poorest EU member, Bulgaria, stands at 38% of the union average. Mississippi is also the most religious state: folks there are three times more likely to go to church weekly than in Vermont (the most secular state). Well, three quarters of Maltese and two thirds of Poles go to church once a week: just 3% of Danes do the same. Mississippians are less likely than Californians to think global warming is a “very serious” problem, by 56% to 73%. Try Estonia, where just 42% think climate change is “very serious”, compared to 84% of Greeks.

从多个角度考量，欧洲比美国都更加多样化。密西西比是美国最贫穷的州，其人均收入几乎只有美国人均值的三分之二。而最贫穷的欧盟成员国保加利亚，其人均收入只有欧盟人均值的38％。密西西比是受宗教影响最深的州,该州的人们每个星期去一次教堂的次数可能是佛蒙特（最世俗的州）人的3倍。然而，四分之三的马耳他人和三分之二的波兰人每周去教堂一次，只有3％的丹麦人能做到这一点。密西西比人与加利福尼亚人相比，认为全球变暖是一个“非常严重”问题的人口比为56％对73％。而爱沙尼亚人与希腊人相比，认为气候变化“非常严重”的人口比为42％对84％。

Some Americans are still unfazed. Come on Euro-Lilliputians, they cry, form a United States of Europe and elect yourself a president. They might like to ponder the kind of European issue big enough to win votes, continent-wide. Depressingly, opposing Turkey is one of the few that might do the trick.

一些美国人仍然是一幅不生孩子不知肚子痛的模样。他们大声呼吁，快点吧，欧洲的小兄弟们，赶快组成一个欧洲合众国吧，直选出你们自己的总统吧。但如果他们面临在整个大陆这样的范围内如何赢得选举这样的大事，他们也会深思熟虑一番的。令人郁闷的是，反对土耳其入盟可能是仅有的几个取得选战成功的法宝之一。