(Reuters) Turkey’s hopes of joining the European Union are fading, the bloc’s executive said on Wednesday, blaming authoritarian rule for worse conditions in courts, prisons and the economy.
Still considered a security ally, Turkey’s candidacy to join the world’s largest trading group is frozen because of “further serious backsliding” on rights, the judiciary and economic policy, the Commission said in its annual progress report.
The report, which EU governments are set to approve in June, cements a growing sense in the West that Turkey has veered worryingly away from the market reforms of the early 2000s as President Tayyip Erdogan consolidates power.
A crackdown following a failed coup in July 2016, a shift to a powerful presidential system with few checks and balances, and closer ties with Russia have alarmed Western leaders and financial markets alike, sending the value of the lira tumbling.
