Ergenekon trial is a yardstick of whether Turkey is ready for EU membership

On Monday the second part of a trial began in Istanbul of fifty-six people, including high-ranking generals, who are accused of plotting to overthrow the government of Premier Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The daily Die Presse writes that the Ergenekon trial - the largest political trial to be held in modern Turkey - amounts to a minor revolution for Turkey: "Even the media are plucking up the courage to criticise the 'holy cow' the army, and even newspapers like the nationalist Hürriyet condemned a paper written by a high-ranking officer that recently became public, which contained measures for destabilising the Islamic-conservative government of Erdoğan. In 2003 it accomplished a great feat for democracy in knocking into shape the National Security Council, once the body that gave the political orders. However, not all members of the army have taken their new role to heart. The extent to which the judiciary is really able to get to the bottom of the 'Ergenekon plot' will show how far along the road to Europe Turkey has really come."

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