A press conference where the results of the "Results of Research on EU Support and Perception of Europe in Public Opinion 2023" were announced and a panel titled "Relations with the EU in the Centenary of the Republic and Public Perception of Europe" was organised by IKV on 27 October 2023. IKV Deputy Secretary General M. Gökhan Kilit, who moderated the meeting, invited IKV Chairperson and KSO President Ayhan Zeytinoğlu to the podium to make the opening speech, after celebrating the centenary of our Republic and briefly informing the participants about the program flow. In his speech, Chairperson Zeytinoğlu evaluated the current situation in Turkey-EU relations and underlined the importance of the 66% support for EU membership in our country in the public opinion survey of IKV with the support of TİM and commissioned to MetroPoll research company.

Following the opening speech, IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Nas shared the results of the public opinion survey with the press and participants. According to the results of the survey, while the rate of those who have information about the EU in Türkiye is 67.7%, the main source of information is the internet and social media with 60.5%. In the survey, in which 66% of the respondents support Turkey's EU membership when asked about the reasons for this support, the increase in welfare and economic development of our country ranked first with 69.1%, followed by the development of democracy and human rights in our country with 47.1%. The reasons for not supporting EU membership were that EU membership would harm Turkish culture and identity with 50.9%, followed by the fact that it would damage our national sovereignty and independence with 36%.

Following the presentation of IKV Secretary General Nas, the panel discussion started under the moderation of IKV Deputy Secretary General M. Gökhan Kilit. The first speaker of the panel, Ambassador (Ret.) Selim Yenel, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the GRF, evaluated the results of the survey and pointed out that according to the survey, participants use social media as the most common source of information. In addition, when the reasons for opposing EU membership are analysed, he stated that most of these reasons stem from misinformation and misconception and emphasised the importance of accurate information on Türkiye-EU relations.

The second speaker of the panel, Dr. Bahadır Kaleağası, Director of Institut du Bosphore, started his speech by stating that false or distorted information is spreading very rapidly at present and that this is a global problem. Kaleağası pointed out that the discussions on the EU’s enlargement gained momentum with the war in Ukraine, but it is also discussed how the EU's decision-making system will change and stated that it is necessary to evaluate what the new membership models will be in the future and whether Türkiye will find a place among these models.

The last speaker of the panel, Prof. Zeynep Alemdar, Faculty Member at Okan University and Founder of the Women in Foreign Policy Platform, briefly discussed the developments in the last century in Türkiye and the last century in the EU and evaluated Türkiye's EU process in the historical flow. Prof. Alemdar underlined that taking both Türkiye's past century and the EU's past century into consideration can contribute to healthier public opinion research and convincing citizens who have problems accessing data.