The permanent representatives of the EU member countries agreed late on Thursday to open talks on the environment chapter on Monday during a Turkish-EU intergovernmental conference. This brings the number of chapters opened for accession talks to 12 out of 35.
The negotiations for Turkey’s EU membership began in 2005, but little progress has been made since then. In addition to the daunting task of bringing its standards in nearly all walks of public life in line with those of the EU, Turkey’s accession process is also facing political challenges stemming from the Cyprus problem and opposition in some EU countries to Turkey’s membership. For reasons related more to politics than to the technical criteria the talks are based on, the EU has suspended talks on several chapters: In 2006, the EU suspended talks on eight chapters due to Turkey’s refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Greek Cyprus. Later, France announced that it would block five other chapters because they are directly related to accession. Earlier this month the Greek Cypriot administration said it would block talks on six chapters because Turkey continues to withhold permission for its ships and planes to have access to Turkish ports and airports.
The environment chapter is one of the hardest chapters out of the 35 due to its extensive scope and high standards for compliance. The accession process is expected to further slow down in the coming years given the fact that only a few chapters are left for negotiations, all of which have difficult opening benchmarks.
