Frankly, I've been wondering if it would be doing the EU a favor to have Turkey join. I'm not sure just what advantage it would have for Turkey.

Haven't the recent fires in Germany shown some light on things? European countries are dying out. For all their xenophobia, they can't even replace themselves in population. They need "new blood" in order to survive.

Also, I've been thinking about this "Nationalist" issue and questioning it. What is wrong with love of ones country? What is wrong with wanting to defend ones country? If you don't love and want to take care of your own country, what sort of benefit are you to another country? Isn't it your own home you take care of first?

Culture is an alive thing. It grows and constantly evolves. That is very evident here in the US when one meets people from whatever "old country" still having the culture and ideals of how it was when they left. It's like something frozen or immersed in formaldehyde.

Guys it's fine the only thing I will say is that for us to discuss any topic we have to read both sides of whatever we are discussing about. I jsut don't like when we start discussing stuff then everything becomes personal

Anyway sorry if I offended anyone I always try to listen and I will like for all of us to do the same

It's hard to imagine Turkey in EU if there are more people who think like adonis there. Being patriotic does not mean snapping at people for criticising your country, but proving it's not as they think. Hopefully, his opinion is as little representative of Turkish youth as femme's is of non-Turks. I have met a lot of great, open-minded people and I do hope they are majority over there, not adonislike ones.

The question is - who needs who more? I'd say EU doesn't need Turkey as much as Turkey needs EU. Somebody mentioned Norway. It's different as Norway is perfectly self-efficient and has agreed to treaties with EU. For Turkey treaties are not enough, it's either full membership or nothing. Now, who will lose their chance then?

Many Poles were unsure about EU, some media were poisoning the society with their propaganda that EU will kill the only just Roman Catholic minds (please, note the sarcasm) and family values Poland's so proud of. We joined the EU and...somehow this evil keeps its hands off Polish traditions, values or religion. The thing is over 2 mln Poles (out of 38 mln altogether) immigrated. And so did one-fourth of Lithuanian people. Other new EU members are not scarce in the number of immigrants as well. Imagine Turkish accession, how many of their 80 mln will stay in Turkey? In their case, one-fourth is 20 mln. Will EU be able to cope with that?

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=951 gives a graph followed by:

“In 2006 the total fertility rate (TFR) in the UK was 1.84 children per woman. In 2001, the TFR hit a record low of 1.63, but it has increased each year since then. Although the current level of fertility is relatively high compared with that seen during the 1990s, the TFR was considerably higher during the 1960s 'baby boom', peaking at 2.95 children per woman in 1964.”

This is interesting when studied in conjunction with:

““Instead of crystal-ball gazing about the fourth millennium, we should look at how societies are already changing. Britain is just one of 61 countries where insufficient babies are being born to replace the population. For a population to remain stable, women must have an average of 2.1 babies each. In the UK, women are having just 1.7. In Japan it is 1.4. In Spain it is just 1.15 (in some parts of Spain it has dropped below one). The unexpectedly sharp decline in fertility around the world has forced all forecasters - including the UN - to revise their predictions of when world population will peak before falling back. The UN's best guess is nine billion by 2050, but it admits the total could peak at 7.5 billion by 2040. But whether in 2040 or 2050, fall back it certainly will.” 1999

(extract from http://www.newstatesman.com/199910110023 )

Of course some people will be bothered by the fact that ethnic birth rate is far higher than that of the traditional “white british” birth rate. But the figures given are inclusive of all births in UK.
This is not to say that the statistics won’t change in the future, given the more fluid movement of the european population. I suspect it’s the immigration regulations that need the most attention. The UK creates their own problems, they have a history of importing workforces because of the declining population , the demand for more profit so lower wages (which they can achieve if immigranr workforces are used) and also because of their empire building days.

Interestingly, the more established an immigrant community is in the UK, the lower the birth rate stats seem to be, eg India. It is the more recent immigrant communities that tend to have the higher birth rates.

So the medics are saying that the demands placed on them by dealing with pregnant immigrants, that it is a strain on the NHS? IMO this is overexaggerated by the government in order to slither away from the responsibility of providing the maternity care all pregnant women are entitled to. There needs to be a sharp increase in the number of midwives. It is far more difficult to get onto a midwidery course than a nursing course and graduates often can’t get jobs when they qualify. This is not because there isn’t a need for them.

There are infant birth fatalities because of Group B Strep and these can easily be reduced by providing antibiotics during labour (this is the only time they can be given). The complication is that GBS can be present without detection. A simple test at 36/37 weeks can determine its presence, but this test is not routinely offered and then apparently the NHS test provided on request is not that reliable. So women are reduced to getting a private test carried out, around £32.

There is much talk from the government about prevention rather than cure (smoking/eating/drinking related illnesses). Perhaps they need to take their own advice and provide the GBS test routinely, to prevent babies suffering/dying from the likes of pneumonia, meningitis etc.

Don’t get me wrong, the NHS can be a brilliant service, but it’s managed by government morons who probably go private anyway (don’t quote me on that )