Sentences to ponder

Turkey can afford to keep tax rates unchanged “for the foreseeable future” while other European governments struggle to repair the damage done by the financial crisis, Ali Babacan, economy minister, said on Wednesday.

His comments reflect Turkey’s pride in weathering last year’s turmoil without bailing out any banks or seeking help from the International Monetary Fund. In contrast with much of the European Union it aspires to join, Turkey won recent upgrades to ratings of its sovereign debt after setting medium term fiscal targets it is likely to beat in 2010.

They're also not planning on raising the VAT and the debt-gdp ratio is about 45 percent, an enviable level for many EU nations.  For a while now I've thought that Turkey should refuse membership in the EU, on the off chance that it ever were offered to them.  Here is the full article.