Is the skirmish between Turkey and the EU serious?

After the very harsh statements from both sides, Turkish and EU authorities would be well advised to keep silent for a time and try to mend what can be. The EU's December summit cautiously avoided addressing Turkey directly, leaving this duty to the Council of Ministers for General Affairs, in whose report Turkey has been duly admonished, albeit in very diplomatic terms. Still, if Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu keeps his agenda to visit Brussels in January, the tense atmosphere might somehow be alleviated.

The conclusions of the Council of Ministers for General Affairs on enlargement are eloquent enough to show Turkey a very arduous way toward a more and more hypothetical membership. On the other hand, Balkan countries are given almost carte blanche regarding the political will of the EU for their ultimate membership.

In itself, this is a very bold and courageous move on the part of the EU to give Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and perhaps Kosovo a very important impulse for restructuring and reforming their democracies. The fact that Croatia, which started its accession negotiations at the same time as Turkey and became a member in 2013 remains a very strong incentive for Balkan countries. The exception, perhaps, remains to be Bosnia and Herzegovina, which remains torn to pieces and does not have sufficient internal unity or dynamics to structure a viable country.

Turkey together with Bosnia remains the only "eligible" country that is delicately kept aside. For very different reasons, Turkey and Bosnia share a common feature; they are not likely to become EU members in the foreseeable future. They also share another common denominator of being home to a large Muslim population.

Good souls will certainly be adamant to show and prove that membership has nothing to do with religion. It is also a fact that throughout the deepening of European integration, attempts to include "Christian values" into the founding treaties have been largely rejected. Still, despite the fact that the whole success of the EU is based on its "secular" nature, there is not enough secularism, for instance, to treat Turkey, and to some extent Bosnia, as harshly and intransigently as Bulgaria. In that vein, Turkey should also remind how important its secularism has been in establishing a viable, functioning democracy in an overwhelmingly Muslim society.

Another issue that has seemingly nothing to do with the Turkey-EU relations, but remains at its foundations are the exploration attempts to find natural gas in Cyprus's exclusive economic zone has recently ignited a small scale crisis. Despite all advice to Greek Cyprus to freeze the exploration attempts until negotiations on the future of Cyprus reach a result, Greek Cyprus wanted the Italian ENI and the South Korean Ko-Gas companies to carry out drilling activities in a new zone. In retaliation, Turkey sent an exploration naval ship to carry out prospection studies in the same area, which made the Greek Cyprus go mad over the issue and leave the negotiating table.

The bad news is that no discernable gas reserves have been found during the drilling activities. Both companies declared that the gas well was blind. The news has been totally rejected by the political elite and the mass media in Greek Cyprus, who claimed with one voice that this was a new conspiracy on the part of Turkey and the Turkish Cyprus to bring Greek Cyprus back to the negotiating table. Minister of Energy Yiorgos Lakkrotrypis of Greek Cyprus had to officially confirm that the zone contained no noticeable gas reserve, but this was one of the scenarios they already anticipated. The public is not yet calm. The problem is that the more and more Cypriot policies look like Monty Python rather than responsible governance.