Turkey, Croatia, the Balkans and Plan 'D'

A great many people wrote to me about my article last week in which I argued that the opening of accession negotiations between the European Union and Turkey should be postponed.

To judge from the tone of their responses, few of them, it seems, had actually read the article. My case was that a few years' delay need not have any effect on the date when the negotiations concluded, but might have a considerable bearing on their likely chances of success.

Both sides, it seemed to m...