Assyrian International News Agency, December 4, 2004: A sub-headline in Wednesday's edition of Ortadogu [Middle East], the newspaper of Turkey's hardline Nationalist Action party (MHP), read: "Another outrageous demand from the EU".

It was above a report claiming that some members of the European Union were demanding that Turkey open talks with Kurdish separatists.

In the tidal wave of pro-EU sentiment in Turkey's media, politics and business, Ortadogu stands out by being opposed to membership. Opinion polls show that 70 per cent of Turks favour joining the EU. Yet the paper, which appeals to extreme Turkish nationalists, is not alone.

While leading figures in France, Germany and Austria oppose Turkey's membership, there are also high-profile voices - in academia and think-tanks - inside Turkey who are hostile to the idea. There is no united campaign, and their opposition is more reasoned than Ortadogu's - but no less passionate.

These voices reject the "eurosceptic" label in what is sometimes the British sense of being opposed to everything to do with the EU. They subscribe to "European" ideals as the best way for Turkey to achieve modernity.

But they consider that neither Brussels nor Ankara is being honest in setting the goal of full membership, because the EU may not be able to deliver it and Turkey may not be able to live with the concessions required to achieve it. And they believe they will be vindicated in time.

"I'm not a British-type eurosceptic and I'm not anti-EU or a diehard nationalist," says Hasan Unal, a professor of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, who is perhaps the most prominent figure arguing against full membership.

"My position is that I have come to the view that Turkey's membership is not going to materialise in the foreseeable future and that membership is not going to be as beneficial today as it would have been 10 or 15 years ago."

He considers that the membership process is damaging Turkey's interests, given the concessions it has had to make over issues such as Cyprus or Kurdish nationalism to arrive at the point where the EU may, on December 17, offer it a date next year for negotiations to begin.

If the process takes 10 to 15 years, as even the most ardent supporters of Turkish membership accept, Turkey may be forced to concede even more.

"The EU project", Mr Unal says, "is an opportunity for every country with a grievance against Turkey to come and pinch a piece of it."

He lists Greece, Armenia and Cyprus among those that have wrung concessions out of Turkey or might expect to do so, whether over territorial Aegean waters or Armenians' claims of genocide against the Ottoman Empire, or the withdrawal of Turkish settlers from Cyprus.

He, and others, also consider that it is only natural for French intellectuals or German politicians to balk at the prospect of Turkey's membership, given its size, poverty and booming population, and that these objections do not get an honest hearing in Turkey.

"You've been running the EU for 50 years and suddenly this poor, huge country turns up, grabs all the resources and starts telling you how to run it. Of course you'd be hostile," he says.

Gunduz Aktan, chairman of the Centre for Eurasian Studies, a think-tank in Ankara, argues that Turkey ought not to be too surprised, or too offended, if the EU is unable to agree on December 17 to set a date for the entry process to begin.

"This is a very long-term project," he says. "There are many arguments for and against Turkish membership, but an artificially forced acceptance will not be good either for Turkey or for the EU."

For Turkish sceptics of full EU membership a "privileged partnership", based on the country's existing customs union with the EU, is an ideal alternative.

That would allow the EU to complete its political project and integrate those European countries awaiting membership.

Only when Turkey knows what Europe will eventually look like should it consider becoming a full member. "Then we can see if a full marriage is possible," Mr Unal says.

By Vincent Boland
Financial Times