The meeting, which was the last JPC meeting before the general elections in Turkey set to take place on 7 June, was co-chaired by Mr. Afif Demirkıran on behalf of the Turkish side and Manolis Kefalogiannis on behalf of the EP.

Speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly Cemil Çiçek and Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Volkan Bozkır delivered the opening speeches. Minister Bozkır explained the importance of EU membership both for Turkey and the EU especially in regard to common economic interests, trade relations, energy cooperation, fight against radicalism and terrorism.,

During the meeting, Turkey-EU JPC Co-Chair Mr. Demirkıran stated that opening Chapter 17 on Economic and Monetary Policy in itself would not be enough in generating the much needed impetus in the accession talks and argued that Chapter 23 on Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and Chapter 24 on Justice, Freedom and Security as well as Chapter 15 on Energy should also be opened for negotiations.

In the first session, Undersecretary of the Ministry of EU Affairs Ambassador R. Rauf Engin Soysal, on behalf of the Presidency of the EU Council Latvia’s Ambassador to Ankara Atis Sjanits and Director for Strategy and Turkey at European Commission’s Directorate General for European Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, Simon Mordue presented their respective assessments on Turkey-EU relations and the state of play in accession negotiations to the JPC members.

The main issues on the agenda of the other sessions were racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, the fight against all forms of discrimination and media freedom and the fight against terrorism. The final session of the meeting focused on Turkey-EU Customs Union, EU’s free trade agreements including TTIP and Turkey-EU foreign policy cooperation.