TURKEY - Oct 30 - Report Puts Turkey's EU Hopes in Jeopardy.

Turkey's bid for European Union membership will be dealt a fresh blow next week when an official report will slate Ankara for failing to make enough progress on freedom of expression, curbing the use of torture and establishing civilian control over the military. The draft European Commission report, obtained by FT Deutschland, the FT's sister paper, comes at a particularly sensitive time, with EU officials struggling to keep the accession talks alive. Some EU member states, including the UK, fear that the pro-European consensus within Turkey may be fragmenting, and that the debate within the union on future enlargement has had the effect of alienating Turks, rather than encouraged reform. "We would have hoped that Turkey would have delivered a lot more during the past 18 months, certainly since the beginning of negotiations in October last year", said one EU official. "If Turkey had been moving more, if there was greater freedom of expression, if there wasn't any torture, things would be a lot more promising". Instead, the debate over Turkey's accession will come to a head at an EU summit in December, when Ankara will be judged both for its reaction to an EU deadline to open up its ports to ships from Cyprus - which so far it has refused to do - and to its broader reform record. The Commission's report faults Ankara for failing to allow access to Cypriot ships, which it states infringes the EU's customs union agreement with Turkey. It is this issue that could formally halt negotiations, since as an EU member state, Cyprus wields a veto over Turkey's possible accession. However, Turkey's reform record will also set the mood in December. "Turkey needs to relaunch the reform process with full determination", Olli Rehn, the EU's enlargement Commissioner said last week, urging EU member states to focus on the issue. The draft report, which Rehn will present in its final form next week, says that "prosecutions and convictions for the expression of non-violent opinion...are a cause for serious concern". It cites the example of a journalist who was given a suspended six months prison sentence for articles he wrote on Armenian identity. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's PM, said at the weekend that he had no plans to change the article of the penal code used in such cases, which makes it a crime to insult the Turkish state. "On this matter, there is no work in hand", he said. The Commisison draft adds that "cases of torture and ill treatment are still being reported, in particular outside detention centres", although it also notes a diminution in the incidence of torture. "The armed forces have continued to exercise significant political influence", the report also says, citing statements made by senior military officials on Cyprus, secularism and the country's Kurdish minority. The draft report faults Turkey for corruption, insufficient independence of the judiciary, and inadequate protection of minority rights. However, it does commend Ankara for training the judiciary and for its steps towards establishing an ombudsman to help citizens win redress against the government.