Recently it was announced that the European Union's (EU) statistics agency Eurostat will be furnished with a broader set of authorities to be able to audit the budget accounts of the member states more cautiously. The decision was made at the EU finance ministers' meeting held in the second week of June. Olli Rehn, EU Commissioner Responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs, stated that in the context of the new auditing authorities of the Union, the national statistics of Bulgaria might be examined.

Bulgarian Radio's web page on June 18 featured the following text in Turkish: "It is reported that Olli Rehn of the EU Commission will meet with Bulgarian Minister of Finance Simeon Dyankov. Prime Minister Borisov stated that the purpose of the meeting was that Minister Dyankov will inform Mr. Rehn in person to eliminate the doubts about the economic statistics and fiscal discipline." Let me remind you that Bulgaria became a member to the EU in 2007.

You might remember that a couple of days before this meeting, the senior ministers and the prime minister of the new Hungarian government had pulled all the boners. The new government had accused the former government of hiding the actual budget figures from the public and had stated that the country is about to bankrupt. The fun part is that while the ministers were adding fuel to the fire it was the Foreign Minister who made effort to save the day speaking "No, we are doing just fine. The statements of my colleagues were misinterpreted". What is the connection? I guess the connection goes like this: Since all ministers related with economic affairs were busy with arguing how the Hungarian economy was about to bankrupt, the foreign minister seemed to be a better alternative to the minister of sports or culture to refute the statements. By the way, let us note that Hungary became a member to the EU in 2004.

Similar developments were also observed in Greece. Again, the new government accused the old government of hiding budget figures from the public. The circumstances were bad even according to the old figures. New figures revealed, however, that things were much severer. We were like cats on hot bricks throughout the last spring monitoring the developments in the country. Greece became a member to the EU in 1981.

Güven Sak wrote a nice commentary in Referans daily on last Thursday. He began with the reduction of BNP Paribas's credit rating and concluded with the EU's digestion capacity. He underlined that the EU banks are facing big risks due to the challenges encountered by new EU member states (Greece is also in this group though it entered the union 29 years ago). In short, he argued that the new members could not be digested by the EU. The moral of his story is that, life will be more difficult for the members-to-be.  New rules and restrictions are on the way.

Last year I talked about a study I was authoring with Hasan Ersel. The study examined the uncertainty in Turkey's membership process and the end of this process caused by the digestion capacity argument used against Turkey (to mask other certain justifications), in terms of its impact on Turkey's reform appetite. It tried to answer the question "Under which conditions we must head our own way?"

If the Greece, Hungary and Romania, who are members to the EU since 1981, 2004, and 2007 respectively, make the Union to review its digestion capacity, think what can happen in the case of Turkey in the future. The views highlighted after the latest United Nations voting maintained that Turkey must further lean towards the EU. However economic developments indicate the exact opposite. It appears that Turkey's EU advantage is on the edge of a tough turning point.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 27.06.2010