The 34^th meeting of the Turkey-EU Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) was held in Brussels on the 8-9^th April 2015 under the Co-Chairmanship of TESK President Bendevi Palandöken and Vice-President of the Chamber of Trade and Industry of Slovenia Cveto Stantic. From the Turkish side, the meeting was also attended by the Turkish Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Volkan Bozkır and representatives from TOBB, HAK-İŞ, TÜRK-İŞ, KAMUSEN, MEMURSEN, TZOB, TİSK, and TESK.  IKV’s Member of the Board of Directors Işınsu Kestelli, IKV Deputy-Secretary General and Research Director Melih Özsöz and IKV Brussels Representative M. Haluk Nuray also participated to the meeting.

At the meeting, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Bozkır stressed that although only one chapter has been opened in the last four years due to political obstacles in the accession negotiations, Turkey continue with determination its reforms. In regard to Turkey’s effort of alignment with the EU acquis, Minister Bozkır highlighted that 167 reform laws were approved in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in the last four years. He added that Turkey is currently not only ready to open 28 chapters and to close 14 chapters but also could complete the negotiation process in two years once the political obstacles will be overcome with the EU.  Reminding the ceilings of 3% for budget deficit and 60% for public debt of GDP according to the Maastricht economic criteria, Minister Bozkır pointed out that Turkey is in a better position compared to 22 Member States in terms of fulfilling these criteria. Furthermore, once Turkey will fulfill all these criteria, Minister Bozkır also explained that in the case a referendum will be held in Turkey regarding its EU membership, the results of the public opinion show that 72% of the society will vote in favor of Turkey’s EU membership.

At the meeting, the head of the Turkey Unit at the European Commission's Directorate General for Enlargement, Jean-Christophe Filori explained that the technical preparations were completed for the opening to negotiations of Chapter 17 on Economic and Monetary Policy but they still required the approval of Member States.  Filori also pointed out to some positive developments in regard to Turkey-EU relations such as Turkey’s commitment to EU membership, increase of high-level meetings and visits between Turkey and EU, the beginning of cooperation for the revision of the Customs Union, the ongoing negotiations for visa liberalisation, the launch of high level political dialogue on energy policy, preparation for the launch of economic dialogue and the fight against terrorism as well as the progress made in the settlement process. Nevertheless he also expressed his concerns regarding the developments related the independence of the judiciary and fundamental freedoms and expressed his concerns about the insufficient stakeholder consultation mechanism during the legislative process and “disproportionate constraints” applied on social media in Turkey.

In the session of “Developments in the Implementation of the Visa Liberalisation”, Permanent Delegation of Turkey to EU his Excellency Ambassador Selim Yenel, Policy Officer for International Affairs Unit at the European Commission’s Directorate General of Migration and Home Affairs Francesco Luciani and IKV Deputy-Secretary General and Research Director Özsöz gave presentations on the visa liberalization dialogue.