Austria finds Turkey hard to swallow

Austria kept the Turks out in 1683 and, for most of the past few days, it looked like they were determined to do so once again.

Austria’s government, alone among the EU’s 25 countries and despite signing an agreement to the contrary in December last year, said it would not agree to Turkey becoming a full member of the EU.

With membership talks originally due to begin at 4pm today, the Austrian politicians insisted they would only agree to “privileged partnership” for the country of almost 70 million mostly Muslim people.

That set up a day of deep uncertainty. This morning, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, warned the EU was "on the edge of a precipice” as the chances of the accession talks going ahead appeared to dwindle.