EU agreed to open talks with Turkey on the environment chapter
20.12.2009 17:31 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ European Union officials have agreed to give the
go-ahead for the opening next week of talks with EU-candidate Turkey
on the environment chapter of its accession negotiations, a small step
forward in Ankara’s troubled membership process.
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.
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, Today’s Zaman reported.