As Turkey prepares to launch what Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its prime minister, calls a cross-border “operation” against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, it must be tempting to dismiss as an irritant or an irrelevance the annual report card from Brussels on its stormy negotiations on European Union membership.

That would be a mistake. Eventual EU integration remains overwhelmingly in the interests of Turkey, Europe and the west. If it is a prize that looks out of reach now, that does not mean it always will be – if both sides play their cards well.