- Newsday - Getting EU on track would help U.S.:
"Before the French and Dutch votes in late May and early June, the EU was discussing the possibility of expanding to include the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Ukraine and Turkey.
"The United States has important interests in all three. It fought wars in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s and still has troops in both. Ukraine is a country of more than 50 million people that, after peaceful protests against a rigged election, has installed a genuinely democratic albeit shaky government. Its fate will affect prospects for democracy in the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine's huge neighbor, Russia, which retains enough nuclear weapons to destroy the United States.
"Turkey is a longtime American ally, the mostly Muslim country with the oldest tradition of democratic governance, and one whose political future will influence neighboring countries where the U.S. is deeply engaged - the Arab Middle East.
"The United States has a powerful interest in encouraging political stability, human rights and political liberty, free elections and economic prosperity in all three places. EU membership has a track record of helping to foster precisely these things."
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