Schroeder warns on battle with Turkey

“Turkey can, when its citizens want, become an important, perhaps the most important, bridge between continental Europe and the eastern Mediterranean region,” he said.
“Those who turn the issue of Turkey’s membership into a new battle of cultures – on the lines of Christian western world against Islam – want to fool people into thinking Moslems don’t want to be a part of our culture and society.”
Leading members of Germany’s conservative opposition have opposed Turkish membership of the European Union.
The Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) leader Edmund Stoiber has said Turkey’s EU entry “would be the end of Europe’s political union”.