The European Commission is set to recommend a partial suspension of Turkey's EU membership talks, analysts said Wednesday, as there is little likelihood that Ankara will move swiftly on the key issue of Cyprus following a highly critical report.
The Commission issued its annual report on Turkey on Wednesday highlighting human rights and corruption problems as well as the influence of the army in politics.
However it is the issue of the divided island of Cyprus, which looks set to upset Turkey's EU adhesion talks.
Ankara swiftly rejected any link between the Cyprus problem and its talks on joining the bloc, saying that the responsibility of keeping Turkey's membership bid on track "falls more on the EU".
Turkey refuses to open its air and sea ports to craft flying the flag of the internationally-recognised Cyprus Republic, whose Greek Cypriot government controls the south of the divided island. This is despite a customs deal with all members of the 25-nation bloc it is seeking to join.
While stopping short of suspending EU membership talks now the EU's executive arm told Ankara to make progress on the Cyprus problem before an EU summit in mid-December or face unspecified consequences. Analyst Amanda Akcakoca at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre said: "Turkey's relations with the EU seems to be doomed to a negative spiral."
"The pace of reform in Turkey has slowed down. Everything now depends on what the Commission recommends, but I expect they will recommend a partial suspension of talks". Katinka Barysch, from the London-based Centre for European Reform warned of the consequences if there is not some movement by the main protagonists.
"It has become abundantly clear that if this is not turned round it could turn into a train crash," she warned.
The suggestion on the table at the moment is that the EU suspends a certain number of the 35 accession chapters which all EU candidate nations must satisfactorily complete before membership is considered, according to analysts. "The number of chapters that could be suspended, because of the port opening issue is not set in stone," Barysch said.
"Some countries say one should only suspend the chapters which are strictly related to customs and transport, anything between three and 12. That still leaves a lot of chapters you could open in the mean time."
Professor Richard Whitman, a senior fellow at the Chatham House research institute in London said the Commission's report on Turkey was unusually hard-hitting. "I don't recall anything that has been so aggressive by commission standards," he told AFP. In the absence of any significant moves by Ankara, the European Commission is likely to start "soft-peddling" on the threats, he said.
Cyprus seriously doubts that Turkey will meet a mid-December EU deadline to honour trade obligations to the divided island, its foreign minister said Thursday. "There is nothing significant that could arise between now and December that would lead to a change in Turkey's stance," George Lillikas told reporters.
While freezing some of the accession chapters would not mean much to most people it would be a strong signal indicating a lengthening of the whole process. "It puts an anchor on the Turkish accession process because it is really reducing to a crawl the enlargement process moving forward".
With the current EU fragility over its institutional reforms, and unease over the upcoming membership of Bulgaria and Romania in January, he saw little likelihood of the Commission giving any more ground, especially with member state Cyprus knowing how to "clog up the mechanism".
While European politicians would probably be quite happy handing the problem over to their eventual successors, Turkey itself might get fed up with a long-drawn out process and themselves press the "pause button," he added.
In any event, the "enlargement hangover" following the adhesion of 10 mainly ex-Soviet bloc states in 2004 is likely to slow down the process for all candidate nations, with Croatia at the top of the list.
The European Commission proposed Wednesday that no more nations be allowed in until the bloc has carried out institutional reforms, blocked by the rejection by French and Dutch voters last year of a draft constitution. In the best-case scenario that means 2009 at the earliest for Croatia, according to Barysch. "If that doesn't work then it's going to take a lot longer".