Turkey’s membership negotiations with the European Union have regrettably slowed to a crawl after five years. At least half of the 35 negotiating chapters, or subject areas, which need to be agreed on are blocked on the EU side owing to the problem of Cyprus and France’s opposition to Ankara’s membership. Now it is Turkey that has soured on the idea. With Europe shaken by a spiraling credit crisis and the tumult of the Arab Spring creating opportunities for Turkey to wield new clout as a regional power, people in Turkey are weighing a step that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago: walking away from the European Union altogether. Fed up with being rebuffed by France and Germany, proud of their successful economy, and increasingly keen to court their fellow Muslim neighbours to the East, a growing number of Turkey's 73 million citizens are now wondering whether EU membership is quite so important as it once seemed. While nearly three quarters of Turks supported the idea in 2004, some polls less than half doing so now. Public opinion in Turkey has already turned away. According to surveys by the German Marshall Fund, 73 percent of Turks saw membership as a good thing in 2004, but only 38 percent felt that way by 2010. Cooler relations with Turkey are costing Europe influence in the Arab world, where Turkey, a NATO member bordered by Iran, Iraq and Syria, is fast becoming an important interlocutor for the West. For the first time in decades it seems that Europe needs Turkey more than Turkey needs Europe.
