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Turkey's chief negotiator on EU accession, Egemen Bagis, has joined in the country's backlash against a European Commission report which criticised its blockade of Cyprus and laid out a laundry list of civil liberties shortcomings. Mr Bagis in a written response to EUobserver's questions on Wednesday (10 November) accused the EU of not doing enough to help end the isolation of Turkish Cypriots, of "irrationally" blocking talks on energy co-operation and of "hiding" its real reasons for the slow pace of accession behind Cyprus.

The 104-page-long commission report, out on Tuesday, urged Ankara to open up its ports and airports to Cyprus unilaterally. It painted a picture of Turkey as becoming increasingly wealthy and liberal. But it said the constitutional reform process has not gone far enough and noted that the situation for journalists, women and gay people looks distinctly un-European on the other side of the bloc's southern border. Reporters in Turkey can still face criminal proceedings for the archaic offence of "insulting the Turkish nation." A tax case against the government-critical Dogan Media Group has spooked journalists into self-censorship. And videos making fun of Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, saw YouTube pulled off the wires for over a year and a half. The situation looks good for women on paper. But in practice so-called "honour killings" are up, early and forced marriages "remain serious problems" and tens of thousands of girls in eastern and south-eastern regions are out of school. In school "textbooks still contain stereotypes about women's role and status." Meanwhile, the Turkish establishment promotes intolerance against gay people. The EU Commission noted that the minister for women publicly called homosexuality a "disorder" while the army calls it as a "psychosexual illness." The negative climate has seen killings of transvestites and transsexuals; police beatings of transgender activists; people losing their jobs for being gay; and authorities punishing gay people under bylaws on "offences against public morality."

Britain and other European Union countries put their weight behind Franco-German calls for tougher eurozone rules at a summit today (29 October), agreeing on "limited" changes to the EU's main treaty in return for a cap on the EU budget.

Officials struggled to deliver the message that legal tricks could accommodate both Germany's push for treaty change and conflicting calls from several other countries which had rejected the idea. Regarding treaty change, the key word is "simplified", officials explained. A simplified provision, enshrined in Article 48, Section 6 of the Lisbon Treaty, allows member countries to unanimously adopt a decision amending all or part of the main elements of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), which governs how the Union carries out its work. Such a procedure would avoid the need to call a constitutional convention, experts explained. In addition, the European Parliament would only be "consulted" instead of enjoying full voting rights as part of the normal co-decision procedure. The changes to the treaty are to be settled by mid-2013, before the expiry of the present emergency fund agreed earlier this year to deal with crises such as the one that hit Greece. The objective is to replace that with a permanent mechanism. The simplified treaty change procedure will not enter into force until it is approved by member states in accordance with their constitutions. Most EU countries are expected to ratify the decision by a simplified procedure in their parliaments. As for Ireland, it remains unclear whether a change effected in this way would require another referendum.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron appears to have been instrumental in forging a deal, lending his backing to Franco-German calls for treaty change in return for keeping a lid on the EU's 2011 budget. 11 member states, including Britain, France and Germany, will send a letter to the European Commission and Parliament today saying that their plans to increase the EU budget by 5.9% in 2011 are "especially unacceptable at a time when we are having to take difficult decisions at national level to control public expenditure". The letter was signed by the leaders of the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Slovenia and Estonia. The bloc's finance ministers had earlier voted for a limited increase in the EU budget of 2.9%. "We are clear that we cannot accept any more than the 2.9% increase proposed by the finance ministers," the leaders say in the letter. Cameron argued that a planned increase in the EU budget would cost his country's taxpayers the equivalent of one billion euros. The 2.9% rise would still cost them £435m (500m euros). Parliament to fight back By agreeing to cap the budget, EU leaders set themselves on a collision course with the European parliament, which has the power to approve or reject the proposed budget. Negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council, which represents the 27 member countries, over the EU's 2011 budget kicked off on 27 October (see 'Background'). "If Cameron is prepared to give up the British rebate [...] then we can for sure discuss a reduction of the budget," said Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist & Democrats group in the European Parliament, speaking to EUX.TV, the European policy news channel powered by EurActiv. "The European budget is not to be compared with national budgets," said Schulz. "There are no own resources. We have no European taxes. We have no own money. It is money coming from the member states. We can make no debts. The British budget must be reduced because there is enormous debt. Europe has no debts," he said.