An article carried yesterday in Germany's Die Welt newspaper addressed agriculture and village life in Turkey, and what the realities of these arenas will mean for the just-started EU talks. According to an analysis featured in the article, 22 billion Euro annually would be the cost to the EU to bring Turkey's poor village populations up to EU standards. The analysis then points out that enormous annual payments on this level would quickly destroy the EU economy.

The Die Welt article noted that 1 in 20 Turks live on less than 1 Euro per day, a situation not likely to change within the next 10-15 years. Calling on the EU accession with Turkey to focus more on the economic aspects of a Turkish EU membership and less on the cultural aspects, the article in the Die Welt said: "The question of whether the EU has the capacity to encompass a country like Turkey is very important. Due to Turkey's large population of villagers, and to its generally large and poor population, it will be very difficult. One third of Turks work on very technologically-backwards fields. The yearly average per capita income for 72 million Turks is 6,500 Euro. This is not even one third of the average EU per capita income."
 
It is expected that the agricultural part of the screening process of the EU accession talks with Turkey will begin on December 5, 2005.
 
Massive immigration possibility also questioned in Die Welt article
 
Immigration was the other main issue touched on by the Die Welt article. Giving space to the views of Wolfgang Quaisser, an authority with the Eastern European Institute, the article quoted Quaisser's estimate that an average of 4 million Turks would head for Europe annually if full EU membership was given to Turkey.