Euractiv.com has a good and balanced analysis of the current deadlock in the accession negotiations written by Amanda Paul, an analyst at the European Policy Centre (and columnist for Today's Zaman).
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| Amanda Paul picture from www.ecp.eu |
Unlike too much of current mainstream media commentary on Turkey-EU relations, Paul does not lay the blame for the current impasse squarely at Turkey's feet. Instead, she points to the mutual failure to reach an agreement on Cyprus as the main stumbling block, noting that:
No doubt some member states will be hoping that Turkey's patience will snap and Ankara will draw a line under its own membership process, but this is unlikely. Contrary to the AKP's recent rhetoric, it needs the EU badly.
And she is less pessimistic than some, pointing out (as I did in my last post) that a lot can still happen:
While the opposition of key member states France and Germany, the economic crisis and the fact that it has almost become socially acceptable to be anti-Muslim are serious problems, they are longer term issues.
