Abstract
The conservative European deputy Pierre Lequiller held a very common idea last year at a meeting in Sciences Po. He asserted that George W. Bush supports the accession of Turkey to the European Union (EU) because he wants it to be a free trade area. It intimates that 'widening' challenges 'deepening'. 'Widening' the EU means enlarging it, and 'deepening' means reinforcing its political, economic and maybe social integration. Historically, the EU has been both widened and deepened. However, the current crisis conveys the message that the enlargements of 2004 and 2007 and the Turkey issue endanger the EU. It is a real disaster. Bronislaw Gemerek shows that 'widening' serves an ideal of unity. He gives the example of the enlargement of 2004. It is the biggest in the EU's history, given that ten States entered the EU. Eight of them belonged to the communist world 15 years before. The artificial division caused by the Cold War has been effaced. The idea that the accession of Turkey to the EU would as well efface that the rivalry between the Christian world and the Muslim world can also be defended. So we have good grounds to say that 'widening' is justified.
