Erdoğan is both a bully and a menace. Europe ignores him at its peril

Turkey's aggression towards its rivals and allies alike is posing a threat to regional stability, yet nobody is prepared to act

Much opprobrium has been heaped in recent days on the elective dictatorship" of Alexander Lukashenko and his violently fraudulent bid to secure a sixth term as president of Belarus. Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign affairs chief, led a chorus of condemnation, rejecting last Sunday's poll as neither free nor fair".

Yet Europe's righteous wrath and sanctions threats seem a tad confected. Nobody really expected Lukashenko to play fair. Democratic reform in Belarus, a country firmly stuck in Russia's orbit, is not an EU priority. There is no discernible appetite for the kind of robust intervention that might actually make a difference.