Officially, the European Union has no religion. However, the majority of the member states are Christians. It is stated that around 77 million Muslims live in Europe, which has a population of 744 million as of 2021. There is no Muslim country in the bloc. Turkey, a Muslim country, has waited at the door of the EU since 1960, raising criticism about whether the bloc is a “Christian club” or not. Although some politicians from the EU countries have sometimes stated that Turkey should not be admitted to the bloc because it is Muslim, these comments are strongly rejected by the EU authorities.
For years, a persistently repeated discourse asserts that the EU was indeed formed on an objective like the post-war iron and steel union, based on universal principles and opposing discrimination. However, the situation is clear. The EU is a Christian club. When we look at the countries that Brussels is trying to make a member of the EU, we can clearly see this fact.
Let's be a bit tolerant regarding European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen's rushing to Kyiv to give the EU accession survey to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as there is an ongoing war and the bloc may have wanted to show its solidarity with the country. What about their enthusiasm to invite Moldova, a country on the Ukrainian border, and Georgia, a country in the farthest corner of the Caucasus, to Europe?
Isn’t it interesting that Oliver Varhelyi, the EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, excitedly tweeted that they are “ready to go very fast” in the countries’ membership process. It’s extremely interesting when evaluating the situation from the Christian club angle.
Please do not say the EU is strategically trying to court the NATO countries bordering Russia. If this is the problem, is there an older, more rooted and powerful Western ally in the region than Turkey? If this is not the case, what about Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was only given the status of a “potential candidate country” in 2003? The country officially applied for EU membership on Feb. 15, 2016, and the application was accepted on Sept. 20, 2016. What happened then?
Bosnia-Herzegovina completed and submitted the participation questionnaire in February 2018. On the contrary, today, when it came to the Christian members, the EU apparently smoothed the survey process.
Bosnia-Herzegovina remains a “potential candidate country until it “successfully answers all questions in the questionnaire and enables the functioning of the EU’s Stabilization and Association Parliamentary Committee and develops a national program for the adoption of the EU acquis.”
Yes, the bloc keeps the country in the category of “countries with the lowest rank in terms of EU integration among the Western Balkan countries seeking EU membership” because, like Turkey, it is Muslim!
I don’t even want to recall the example of Greece, which was admitted to the EU for political reasons regardless of meeting the criteria even though Turkey applied at the same time. Let’s forget altogether the controversial membership process of Greek Cyprus. If the EU actors are even a little sincere about the European values they defend and promote on every occasion, they should bring Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose Muslim population is not as large as Turkey, into the bloc. It’s not a big cost for the EU to keep brazenly rejecting the Christian club claims.
