The European Union's foreign ministers did a good job earlier this week when they agreed on how to handle the current difficulties in Turkey's negotiations on joining the bloc.
It would be a mistake to revisit this deal at the EU summit in Brussels today and tomorrow, because leaders need to concentrate on a wider debate about future EU enlargements. The issues at stake are crucial for Europe's future shape and values.
Because it has not opened its ports to Cyprus as was agreed when accession talks began last year, eight of the 35 negotiating chapters with Turkey are to be suspended until progress is made on this question. It is to be part of an annual review over the next three years. The incoming German EU presidency is to examine how the economic isolation of Turkish-ruled northern Cyprus can be brought to an end, as was also agreed by EU leaders in April 2004. And the Finnish presidency issued a statement linking these moves to a revival of United Nations peacemaking efforts there.
Diplomatically this is an elegant, if complex, formula. It avoids the language of sanctions or "train crashes" sought by some member states opposed in principle to Turkish EU membership and keeps open the prospect that others can join. Turkish political leaders criticised the deal but insisted their reform programme will continue. This row seems to have strengthened their hand against military leaders who resent any compromises on Cyprus. In an interview with this newspaper today commission president José Manuel Barroso welcomes the fact that Turkey has been reminded that there are consequences to not meeting its obligations and says it still has progress to make on religious freedoms, minority and women's rights and reducing military involvement in politics. But he recognises that its perspective to join the EU stands and has not been rebuffed.
Future enlargement has now become a sharply contested issue. It divides those who pine for a smaller and deeper EU from those who say enlargement has successfully stabilised political change in Europe after the end of the cold war and must therefore continue. This summit will debate a commission report on whether the EU has the capacity to absorb new members, how to monitor that process politically and where its borders should be drawn - an agenda supported more by the first group than by those who want enlargement to go on. Finnish enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn has been a constructive but critical voice in favour of continuing expansion, a vision shared by the Finnish presidency. They should both be commended for handling the issue so sensitively.