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But the day that the EU will take in a member as populated as all the EU states put together, and as large as half the surface of the Moon, has not arrived yet.
I frankly think people are more open to Turkey joining (what's the EU average on this, has anyone seen the latest Euro barometer figures on this? is it usually at around 35% yes?). And ALL are certainly in favour of being best buddies with Russia.
This makes me conclude that Russia is just too big. If you break it down into Russia I and Russia II then it becomes a near certainty that the EU will take in both
In this case you'd probably talk about Russia I to X at least, with North Caucasus, Tatarstan, Bashkotorstan (mostly Muslim), Yakutia (partly Yakut), Khanty-Mansi Region (almost no population but huge oil resources, I bet EU would love to have them in), and, last but not least, the Central Russian Orthodox Republic, after accepting which the EU will truly learn what does it mean to have to heavily Christian countries (another is Poland) on different sides of the religious divide... Frankly, you don't want THIS experience which will generate endless possibilities for discussing racial and religious reasons to not admit one of these pieces... besides, citizen of today's Russia (Alpha and Omega) would start hating the EU the first time this idea gets aired, and the whole exercise would be moot.
Central Russian Orthodox Republic, after accepting which the EU will truly learn what does it mean to have to heavily Christian countries (another is Poland) on different sides of the religious divide...
The idea is a bit mad anyway - Russia doesn't want to join.
There are some political forces in Russia (such as Yabloko) which are all for accepting European values and even becoming EU members, when the time comes. However, everyone understands quite clearly that an invitation is not forthcoming (just look at Ukraine!) So in some sense, "we don't want to be in the EU" sounds like "sour grapes" to me.
But then, of course, there's a joke that it's not about Russia entering the EU, but EU joining Russia :-)
You could well be right, but I think that subject to all the usual issues (economics, crime, human rights) people would accept Russia joining. But maybe the UK just has different neuroses to France about the EU.
Well, on population, Russia is not as big as the whole EU, it is much less: currently, 31% of the EU-25 (142.8 million vs. 458.5 million). But while Russia's population declines faster than any country in the EU-25 (in fact the whole EU-25 is projected to grow until 2025), the EU will most likely absorb another 120-150 million (Romania, Bulgaria, ex-Yugoslavia, Turkey) before Russia. So if Russia joins say in 2025, it will be around 20% of the then-EU: about the same ratio as Turkey would be in 2015, or the last ten new members were to the EU-15. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On Wikipedia it says that the Moon's surface area is 3.793×10^7 km² (0.074 Earths). Or roughly 37 million square kilometers.
If Russia is 17 million square kilometers, then Russia's surface area is close to half the surface area of the Moon after all, no?
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