Русская версияKazakhstan, despite being in Central Asia, is a member of the Union
of European Football Associations (UEFA).
Israel is in both UEFA
and the Eurovision Song Contest -- competing in the latter rather
more successfully in recent years than, say, France or Britain.
And the South American area of French Guyana is legally a province
of France, which makes it officially a part of the European Union.
Of course, critics would say that it takes a lot more than just
joining a European organization to count as properly "European."
But the problem with that criticism is there is, in fact, no
commonly agreed definition of "European" to confirm it.
And that is far more than just a linguistic problem, because for
some countries, the question of whether or not they count as
European is a vital matter of foreign policy.
Exceptions to the rule
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Not everyone believes Turkey belongs to Europe
Take Turkey, for example. Both the North Atlantic Treaty which
created NATO in 1949, and the various treaties which created the
European Union, state that "any European state" which follows
their rules can join.
But while NATO invited Turkey into the club as long ago as 1952,
the EU is still arguing whether it is sufficiently European to join
-- with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for one, saying it is
not.
A similar row broke out in July 2003 after Italy's famously
unpredictable Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi started his
six-month EU presidency by saying that Israel, among others,
should join.
Israel does not "fulfill the geographical criteria" for membership,
one Brussels official retorted icily.
Diverging definitions
At present, there are three main theories as to how a country's
Europeanness, or lack thereof, should be defined.
Some authorities say that, as in the case of Israel, "European"
should be interpreted in a strictly geographical sense to mean
"somewhere between the Atlantic and the Ural mountains."
But that argument falls apart as soon as you consider that Turkey,
with a small but significant part of its territory in Europe, is
still not accepted as European, but that French Guyana is.
Others say that "European" is more of a cultural term, a
combination of Greek, Latin, Christian and humanist traditions.
That does justify the exclusion of Turkey, with its culture based
on Ottoman Islam. But it falls down every time EU and
NATO leaders call Albania and Bosnia, with exactly the same
heritage, European.
Winning friends and influencing people
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Growing all the time....
A final argument is that "European" means "based on European
values" such as democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
They are certainly values which European leaders talk about a lot.
But any map of Europe based on those criteria would look pretty
moth-eaten, as it would feature gaps over countries such as
Belarus, Russia and even, arguably, EU members Bulgaria and Italy.
In fact, given the lack of expert agreement on what such a popular
word really means, the main definition of "European" in diplomatic
circles these days seems to be, "someone we want on our
side."
And with Europe desperate to make allies in a world of superpower
politics, readers from Mumbai to Melbourne should take heart.
Don't worry if nobody has called you European yet -- it's probably
only a matter of time.
(Deutsche Welle)
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