On the picture Prime Minister Orban Viktór (Hungary), President Donald Tusk, Prime Minister Charles Michel (Belgium), Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (Luxembourg), President François Hollande (France), Stefan Löfven (Sweden) and President Dalia Grybauskaitė (Lithuania).
Text and photographs by European Council
29 November 2015, Brussels: EU heads of state or government held a meeting with Turkey.
The meeting marked an important step in developing EU-Turkish relations and contributing to managing the migration crisis. European Council President Donald Tusk chaired the meeting, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu represented Turkey.
The EU and Turkey agreed to re-energise Turkey’s accession process to the European Union. High-level dialogue between both parties will be reinforced through more frequent and structured meetings including the organisation of summits twice a year. Regular summits will provide a platform to assess the development of Turkey-EU relations and discuss international issues.
The EU is committed to provide an initial €3 billion EUR of additional resources to Turkey to help it cope with the high numbers of Syrian refugees currently in the country.
With the implementation of the action plan, both sides will step up their active cooperation on migrants who are not in need of international protection: – preventing travel to Turkey and the EU – ensuring the application of the established bilateral readmission provisions – swiftly returning them to their countries of origin Leaders welcomed the intention of Turkey to further improve the situation of the Syrians under temporary protection and remain committed to fight against criminal smuggling networks.
The EU and Turkey also agreed to apply from June 2016 the readmission agreement. They are aiming to complete the visa liberalisation process, and the lifting of visa requirements for Turkish citizens in the Schengen zone by October 2016.
Accession process The leaders announced an Intergovernmental Conference on 14 December 2015 to open chapter 17 of the accession process, on further economic integration with Turkey. The European Commission will start the preparation work on further chapters without prejudice to the position of member states. Out of 35 negotiating chapters with Turkey, 14 chapters have been opened and 1 of these has been provisionally closed.
