> Hopefully Turkey joins the EU

Once they understand the notion of separation of church and state at a cultural level, that may become a possibility again.

This will likely be a very long while though.

> democratic and financially stable country

...glances at Greece

Greece was never stable. It corrupted the auditors to lie about their financial situation and did nothing to improve it.

I have both the feeling that we should have just dropped them to not have a weight on us, and I am empathic to the people who lived there (who were avoiding taxes as well, so that may not be the correct feeling I should have)

I'm a mixture of Greek, Turkish and Bulgarian, and am now a German citizen. I understand that it's impossible for me to be impartial in such discussions but it may help others in the discussion being more civil if you could say something to the tune of "there needs to be consequences" instead of saying that "we" should have dropped "them" not have a "weight" on "us".

I was not trying to be controversial, sorry.

I was rather trying to show the mixture of "why bother, just let them go" and "there are real people out there" that was expressed several times (and that was feeling as well).

Oh, now I understand what you mean. Thanks for the clarification!

As long as Cyprus is a member, Turkey will never be. Member countries have veto power.