November 22, 2010

‘Turkey facing hurdles in its EU journey because of Europe’s identity crisis’

Mustafa Edib Yilmaz

A leading researcher at the Washington, D.C.,-based Middle East Institute (MEI) has said Europe is currently going through a process of redefining its own identity, which plays and will continue to play a decisive role in Turkey’s accession process.

MEI Center for Turkish Studies Executive Director Gönül Tol agreed to speak with Sunday’s Zaman in İstanbul. Tol, who received her doctoral degree in political science from Florida International University, argued that the Enlightenment and its core ideals of human autonomy, progress, importance of reason and secularism formed the cornerstone of a common European identity, which opposed the role of established religion in directing thought and action. This new identity, Tol argues, defined a new role for religion outside the realm of the public sphere.