The acceptance speech made last Sunday by Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s Interior Minister and now Union pour un Mouvement Populaire presidential candidate, has attracted considerable attention for its references to Turkey’s European future. Sarkozy categorically stated that “Turkey has no place in the European Union,” that Europe “must give itself borders,” and that “not all countries have a vocation to become members of Europe, beginning with Turkey which has no place inside the European Union.”

According to Sarkozy, “enlarging Europe with no limit risks destroying European political union, and that I do not accept.” The presidential hopeful’s hard-line position on Turkey’s EU membership bid stands in contrast to his opponent in the upcoming presidential race, Socialist Segolene Royal, who is on record as saying that her opinion with respect to Turkey is whatever “is that of the French people” (to my mind rather empty populist waffle).

In any event it seems that Sarkozy’s position is a widespread one, and not only because of so-called “enlargement fatigue” stemming from Central and Eastern European entries in recent years. Only around 20% of the French population supports Turkish entry into the EU. On its face this is an eminently sound position. The arguments against Turkey’s accession have been made again and again: Turkey has ongoing or recent territorial or political disputes with Bulgaria, Armenia, Cyprus, Greece, Syria, and Iraq; it has a massive population (70 million) and an equivalently massive military machine; its human rights record as regards Kurds or intellectuals like Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak has not been encouraging; and concerns about restive Muslim minorities in European nations has certainly had an impact on public opinion and political will. The very idea of the EU sharing a border with Iraq is exceedingly unlikely.

If Sarkozy, and like-minded EU policymakers, is successful and Turkey’s EU bid falters (and Turkey itself turns to other potential spheres of influence like Central Asia), we will begin to see some sort of EU border solidifying. This is of interest for institutional and philosophical reasons. First, EU external relations have been consumed with the enlargement process, thanks in no small part to countries like Britain and the Netherlands opting for political breadth over depth. How often has the Ukraine, for instance, been given the “enlargement wink,” only for Kyiv to have its European ambitions doused with cold water? This constant enlargement flirtation on the part of Brussels is a cheap way to retain geopolitical relevancy. As enlargement fatigue, and even enlargement animosity, sets in, it stands to reason that the institution as a whole must either deepen or fade into obscurity.

The philosophical question of Europe’s borders, alluded to in Sarkozy’s speech, reminds me of a passage in the Italian writer and scholar Claudio Magris’ masterpiece Danubio. In it, he describes the Limes, or stone ramparts, now crumbling but once marking the border of the Roman Empire. “On this side of the line was Empire, the idea and the universal dominion of Rome; on the other were the barbarians, whom the Empire was beginning to fear, and no longer aimed to conquer and assimilate, but merely keep at bay.” Later, peasants began to fear the Limes , seeing them as the work of the devil (“perhaps the devil of imperialism,” Magris opines). “Our history, our culture, our Europe,” Magris writes, “are the daughters of that Limes. Those stones tell of the urge to frontiers, of the need and ability to give oneself limits and form.” In this passage we see conflicting impulses: the need to create clear international boundaries, but an apprehension of imperialism; of the preternatural need for limits, but the comprehension that barbarians seek to cross them. (Of course, while on the subject of borders, Europe must also be mindful of Russia, whose Catherine the Great is reported to have said that “I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.” Vladimir Putin, an unabashedly imperialistic successor to Catherine, is also mindful that Russia ’s security often depends on its neighbor’s insecurity.)

In sum, Europe’s future may very well depend on the state of its borders, national or transnational. Sarkozy’s increasingly popular stance with regard to Turkey speaks to a greater concern. Whether Sarkozy’s subsidiary goal of preserving and buttressing the political union is in fact judicious is the subject of a different, broader, but increasingly vital debate.