Versions- 1st Int. Conf. on the EU, Turkey and the Kurds [English, London, 2005]
- 2nd Int. Conf. on the EU, Turkey and the Kurds [English, London, 2006]
- 3rd Int. Conf. on the EU, Turkey and the Kurds [English, London, 2007]
- 4th Int. Conf. on the EU, Turkey and the Kurds [English, London, 2009]
- 5th Int. Conf. on the EU, Turkey and the Kurds [English, London, 2010]
Part One: Turkey’s Route to Accession
The EU granted Turkey candidature in 1999,13 and in 2002 the Council of the EU (‘the Council’) agreed that accession negotiations would commence ‘without delay’ if, following a Commission report on Turkey’s fulfilment of the Copenhagen Criteria and a subsequent recommendation by the Commission on the appropriateness of opening negotiations, EU leaders at the Council decided that Turkey met the required standards.
On 6 October 2004 the Commission issued its recommendation as anticipated, concluding that Turkey ‘sufficiently’ fulfilled the criteria necessary to open accession negotiations.15 Certain conditions were imposed, including that Turkey should first be obliged to bring into force six specified pieces of legislation.16 On 17 December 2004, EU leaders largely endorsed the Commission’s recommendation that Turkey was ready to begin accession negotiations at the Brussels meeting of the Council, and envisaged that talks would commence on 3 October 2005.17 By 1 June 2005 Turkey had enacted each of the six pieces of legislation which were set out in the Council’s decision of 17 December 2004 as pre-requisites to the opening of formal accession talks... | 
