Fifth meeting of the Accession Conference at ministerial level with Turkey

The fifth meeting of the Accession Conference with Turkey at ministerial level was held today in Luxembourg, following the start of accession negotiations on 3 October 2005. The European Union Delegation was headed by Dimitrij Rupel, Slovenian Foreign Minister and current President of the Council. The Turkish delegation was led by Ali Babacan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief Negotiator.

The aim of the Accession Conference was to open negotiations on two new chapters (both with closing benchmarks), namely: Chapter 6 - Company law and Chapter 7 - Intellectual property law thus advancing further the negotiating process.

For both chapters, and on the basis of negotiating positions, the Union has closely examined Turkey's general state of preparedness in these areas. Taking into account Turkey's present state of preparations, and in line with the Council conclusions on 11 December 2006 - as well as on the understanding that Turkey will continue to make progress in the alignment with and implementation of the acquis - the EU underlined main issues regarding the closing benchmarks to be met by Turkey, namely that Turkey has to fulfil its obligation of full non-discriminatory implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Association Agreement, and further that:

Chapter 6 - Company law

• Turkey adopts the Turkish Commercial Code, the law on the entry into force and implementation of the Turkish Commercial Code aligning with the acquis, as well as all relevant legislation aligning with the EU acquis.
• Turkey modifies the Capital Markets Law in line with the relevant acquis.
• Turkey fully aligns its accounting, financial reporting and statutory audit legislation, including its secondary legislation, with the EU acquis.
• Turkey sets up the Turkish Auditing Standards Board as the sole supreme authority in determining auditing standards and ethics, authorising independent auditors and audit companies under a public oversight system and monitoring their activities within the frame of quality assurance.
• Turkey reinforces its capacity to appropriately implement and enforce the acquis under Company law.

Chapter 7 - Intellectual property law

• Turkey has engaged successfully in a dialogue on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues according to the terms of reference submitted by the Commission to Turkey on 3 April 2008.
• Turkey makes sure that enforcing bodies dispose of sufficient administrative capacity to enforce the rights concerning the fight against piracy and counterfeit.
• Turkey provides a satisfactory track record of investigations, prosecutions and judicial treatment of violations and an improved performance concerning the effective enforcement of Intellectual Property  Law (IPL), including a substantial reduction in the volume of counterfeited and pirated goods exported to the EU.
• Turkey completes the alignment with the Community acquis concerning the community exhaustion of rights and the introduction of supplementary protection certificates, and ensures that these rights will be enforced by accession.

In more general terms, the EU also underlined that it would devote particular attention to monitoring all specific issues mentioned in its common positions with a view to ensuring Turkey's administrative capacity, its capacity to enforce the acquis and its capacity to complete legal alignment in all the areas under both chapters.

The Union will monitor closely Turkey's progress in these two chapters throughout the negotiations.

Since the start of the accession negotiations, eight chapters have been opened, of which one has been provisionally closed.