News & Views

The Arab Spring has apparently had no impact whatsoever on Europe's entrenched views on Turkey. This much becomes clear from the annual report of the European Commission (EC) on Turkey issued in Brussels on Wednesday. The report took stock of Turkey's reform program in terms of its membership bid of the European Union (EU) and roundly censured the country over human rights and its increasingly acrimonious spat with Cyprus. Conceivably, the EC report mummifies for a long time Turkey's EU bid, which has spluttered in the past year or two. To add insult to injury, the EC gave the green light to two of Ottoman Turkey's "grandchildren" in the Balkans - Serbia and Montenegro - on their respective aspirations to join the European club. Recent months have been a heady period for Turkey, which has convinced itself that the new Middle East taking shape in the upheaval of the Arab Spring would find it irresistible as a role model, and that the Western world would inevitably be compelled to revise its opinions and view Turkey in an altogether new light as the torchbearer of enlightenment in the Muslim world. Wednesday's EC report comes as a reality check. The more things seemed to change, the more they remain the same. The EC report chastised Turkey about the lack of freedom of expression, women's rights and freedom of religion as falling below accepted standards in the liberal democracies of Europe. It estimated that the shortfalls continued to disqualify Turkey from joining the EU.