Part of the E.U. Family?

Gunther Verheugen, Europe's Commissioner for Enlargement, swung through Turkey last week before completing his recommendation on whether the E.U. should start membership negotiations with the largely Muslim country. The plan was to display pro-European values — until Turkish domestic politics seeped through. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he would press ahead with a new law banning adultery. "The family is a sacred institution for us," he said in a newspaper interview.

The measure is scheduled to be included in a package of amendments to be introduced this week. It would impose up to a three-year prison term on men or women found guilty of sexual intercourse with someone other than their lawful spouse. Verheugen was not impressed. "Turkey should not give other countries the impression that it's putting Islamic elements into its legal system," he told the newspaper Vatan. Parliament is expected to approve the package but President Ahmet Necdet Sezer — a staunch secularist — may well use his veto.

Still, Erdogan's conservative allies "have proved that when they wanted to they could put their foot down," Mehmet Ali Birand, a political commentator, told TIME. Party politics — nothing un-European about that.