Turkey’s EU report card

  The 104 pages on Turkey’s European Union progress (or lack thereof) from EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle represent the kind of school report which children would rather not show their parents. Its examination of the 35 “chapters” Ankara needs to reach agreement on to join the EU was a damning indictment of its failure to meet European standards in almost every area. The document, published in late October, detailed deficiencies in freedom of speech and religion, minority rights, constitutional reform, questionable behavior by the police and an attitude toward women’s equality that talked the talk but failed to halt the rise in honor killings and forced marriages of girls in their early teens, especially in the east and southeast. Perhaps conscious of the need to throw in a few sentences that could be shown to mum and dad with a smile, many of the most savage sections conclude with