SOMETIMES the most important issues are the least talked about. It is not the new constitution that is the biggest — and most divisive — issue facing the European Union, but rather the looming decision whether to let Turkey join.

In Britain, but not on the Continent, there is a stifling political consensus. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, gave his full support to Turkey this week, and insisted that proving that the EU was not a “Christian club” would help to resolve the “clash of civilisations”, and win the war against terrorism. Such pandering to Western Christian guilt has silenced many critics of Turkey’s membership. The clash of civilisations argument has come to dominate all others since September 11, 2001: al-Qaeda is now to be allowed to decide which countries can join the EU.

But even Britain’s new Muslim ally in the War on Terror, Muammar Gaddafi, recently advised of the dangers of admitting Turkey. He referred to it as “a Trojan horse and warned the West of rising Islamic radicalism on its streets.Europe is already far from a Christian club — there are 15 million Muslims in the EU, more than the population of most individual member countries. Macedonia and Bosnia both have large Muslim populations, and are all already destined to join the EU along with Islamic Albania. It is not Christian intolerance of Muslims that is driving the “clash of civilisations”, but Muslim intolerance of Christians and Jews. While mosques proliferate throughout the European Union, all churches — and even the sale of Christmas cards — are banned in terrorist-exporting Saudi Arabia.

In Germany and France, politicians argue that they ought to learn how to integrate their existing Islamic minorities successfully before opening their borders to Turkey. The recent storm over allowing 1.5 million Eastern European Roma the right to live in Britain is likely to seem trivial when British tabloids realise that the Government is planning to open the door to Turkey’s 70 million Muslims.

While it is true that Turkey is the most democratic and modern of all Islamic countries, its relative secularism is imposed by a Westernised elite, with the aid of restrictive laws and the cult of Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey. Yet it is this very Western-ness that restricts its ability to export EU values to the Middle East. Because Turks drink alcohol, observe weekends rather than Fridays, and ban the hijab in schools, Turks are scorned in much of the Islamic world. Turkey has been a member of Nato for decades, but has failed to export support of Nato to the region.

WHEN I interviewed the Turkish Prime Minister, the Islamist Recep Tayipp Erdogan, in Ankara recently, he expressed pride in the extraordinary progress his Government had made towards meeting EU membership conditions: abolishing state-sponsored torture, allowing the teaching and publishing of minority languages, notably Kurdish, and curbing the army’s dominance over elected politicians.

But he cannot do much about the issues which most trouble the EU: Turkey’s size, poverty and location. With its population growing by nearly a million a year, Turkey would be the most populous country in the EU by the time it joined. It would have a bigger vote than Germany, France or Britain. Despite developed areas around Ankara and Istanbul, much of the country is essentially Third World. As a result, Turkey is expected to soak up twice as muchregional aid as the eight new Eastern European members combined.

Turkey has so little in common with the current member states that further policy integration would be almost impossible. The prospect of allowing an almost entirely Asian developing country to become the biggest member of the EU prompted the former French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to predict “the end of Europe” — which is why so many Euro- philes are opposed, and British Eurosceptics in favour.

Turkey’s membership would thrust the EU into the heart of the Middle East and Central Asia. Its borders with Syria, Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan mean that the region’s ethnic strife — such as Kurdish separatism — would dominate EU politics.

The EU project is already haemorrhaging public support. To turn the tide, governments must show that it not a geopolitical project run in the interest of political elites and non-members, but is run in the interest of the European public. For the sake of Europe, say no to Turkey.

The author is the Europe Correspondent of The Times

Join the Debate at comment@thetimes.co.uk

Times Recommends

• Resist urge to throw voters red meat
• Slay sacred cows and be candid
• We cannot let these 100 deaths deflect us