Turkish Reform Too Slow

According to initial reports about the content of the report, the EU will continue to encourage Turkey in its bid for accession. However, it will also take Ankara to task for the pace with which it is implementing mandatory reforms.

Cyprus, already an EU member, remains a nagging issue. Turkey, which claims the divided island as a part of its national territory, has been reluctant to agree to any moves that could imply any recognition by Ankara of Cypriot sovereignty.

The report also focuses on the slowing pace of Turkish reforms in general. It calls for further efforts to strengthen rights for religious and ethnic minorities, women and trade unions. It urges Ankara to assert civilian control over the military. And it criticizes a Turkish law against "insulting Turkishness," which the EU says impinges on Turkish citizens' freedom of expression.

The Port Plan

EU officials said that European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is determined to give Turkey a chance to institute the necessary reforms. But in the face of many Europeans' growing scepticism toward Ankara's bid, significant progress will have to be made before EU leaders meet in mid-December to decide whether the accession process should continue.

Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, has reportedly drafted a plan aimed at bringing some movement on the issue of Cyprus. The details are being kept secret at present, but the plan allegedly calls upon Turkey to open its ports to ships from Cyprus -- in accordance with the EU customs union.

Turkey agreed in 2005 to extend its customs agreements with the original 15 members of the EU to all of the bloc's newer members, including Cyprus. But thus far, it has kept its ports and airports closed to Cypriot ships and planes.

Turkish failure to yield on this issue could lead to a suspension of membership talks.

Germany in the Hot Seat

Turkey's bid for EU membership could become a major political headache for Germany's conservative chancellor Angela Merkel.

She will be expected to make progress on the issue when Germany takes over the EU Presidency in January. But Merkel herself is sceptical about Turkey's suitability for the bloc, and members of her own grand coalition between Conservatives and Social Democrats are divided along party lines.

On Tuesday, Edmund Stoiber, head of the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's CDU, called for membership negotiations to be suspended. "The major deficits in the human rights situation in Turkey," said Stoiber, "as well as the crass breach of contract toward Cyprus as an EU member state have to elicit consequences. We can't pretend nothing has happened."

German Social Democrats, who supported Turkey's bid for accession under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, were quick to reject Stoiber's demands. Germany's Social Democrat foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned against inflaming the situation. Germany, Steinmeier said, "had every interest in not escalating the conflict here."

Turkish compromise on Cyprus would take the heat off the EU and Merkel. But although Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has expressed willingness to push through further legal reforms in his country, there is no telling whether he would be willing -- or politically able -- to back down on an issue to which Turkey has historically attached so much national pride.