The 57^th Ordinary General Assembly of IKV was held on 13 December 2019 in Istanbul with the participation of the chairmen of the trustees of the foundation, representatives of the supporting organisations and delegates.

The General Assembly commenced with opening speeches by The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, Chairman of Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) İsmail Gülle, Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ICOC) President Chairman Şekib Avdagiç, Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ICI) Vice Chairman İrfan Özhamaratlı and IKV Chairman Ayhan Zeytinoğlu.

Representatives of IKV’s trustee institutions stressed that the EU accession process has gained prominence and pointed out to the critical role IKV has assumed as “Turkey's EU expert”.  While recalling the important role the EU plays in Turkey's foreign trade and investments, they voiced the business community's expectations for the revival of the EU accession process.

In his opening speech, recalling that IKV was celebrating its 54^th anniversary, IKV Chairman Zeytinoğlu indicated that the Foundation which monitors, analyses and formulates views on Turkey's relations with Europe and the EU, would continue to function as "Turkey's EU expert". Stating that civil society organisations always had a word to say where political relations were blocked, Zeytinoğlu highlighted that while laying out Turkey’s rightful claim to the EU, a lot of responsibility fell on IKV.

Chairman Zeytinoğlu continued his speech as follows: "Unfortunately, recently there have been no positive developments in Turkey-EU relations. There has been no progress in the EU accession negotiations. In addition, there has been no progress in other processes such as the modernisation of the Customs Union and visa liberalisation which we hoped would help revive the relations. While we await normalisation and a new momentum in relations with the EU, we have faced a number of fresh sanctions over hydrocarbon exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean. Association Council meetings and high-level dialogue meetings were suspended, while the funds allocated to Turkey under the 2020 budget were reduced.

Unfortunately, visa liberalisation, which according to the Turkey-EU refugee deal, was to be finalised by June 2016 has still not been realised. At this point, we see that the conditions for getting visas have become stricter, let alone the removal of the visa requirement. We think that the only way out is to revitalise the accession negotiations and move forward towards the goal of full membership in order to solve these problems altogether.”

IKV Chairman Zeytinoğlu concluded his remarks with the following words: “Thanks to the contributions of our trustees and supporting organisations including TOBB, as ‘Turkey's EU expert’, we aim to continue to work on Turkey-EU relations and global developments which are very important for our country’s development, democratisation and integration into the global system and to deliver greater benefits than expected of us.”

IKV’s Board of Directors for the 2019-2021 period consists of Ayhan Zeytinoğlu, Prof. Dr. Halûk Kabaalioğlu, Zeynep Bodur Okyay, Atilla Menevşe, İsmail Gülle, Simone Kaslowski, Tuncay Şahin, Ömer Gülsoy, Mehmet Kaya, Işınsu Kestelli, Bülent Kasap, Yavuz Altun, Sedat Zincirkıran, Ali Sami Aydın, Levent Taş, Süleyman Uyar and Akansel Koç. Zeynel Abidin Erdem and Musfata İçöz were elected to serve in the Audit Committee.