How EU membership issues soured a relations-reset lunch with Turkey

Source:Financial Times Date:31Aug2024

A three hour luncheon suggets to me that serious buisness was attended to

Context: Turkey is officially an applicant to join the EU, but its membership progress has been stalled for eight years. Relations hit a nadir in 2019 over a surge in tensions with Greece that led to Brussels suspending some channels for dialogue. Yesterday’s lunch with Hakan Fidan ran over, lasting more than three hours, as he and the EU’s 27 foreign ministers discussed crunchy matters of policy that have stymied progress in deepening relations between Brussels and Ankara, such as the political settlement on the island of Cyprus and the treatment of refugees from the war in Syria. It was the first time in  five years that Turkey has attended a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.