Türkiye welcomes EU’s changing approach toward enlargement

BERLIN

Türkiye’s foreign mister reaffirmed the country’s EU membership goal on Thursday, and said they are closely following the debate in Europe about the bloc's enlargement.

“We have not changed our perspective on EU membership,” Hakan Fidan told an international audience at a panel discussion in Berlin on the EU’s future.

“It is important for EU member states to start a new debate about enlargement under new geopolitical conditions,” he said.

Fidan reminded that Türkiye has been seeking to join the EU for over 50 years, achieved significant progress in accession negotiations between the years 2004 and 2009, but its membership process was put on hold by Europeans due to some political considerations.

He said that it was a positive development that recently, amid changing geopolitical conditions, the Europeans started a new discussion to give a new impetus to the EU enlargement.

“We think that we can contribute in a very constructive way to this discussion,” Fidan said, adding that he is optimistic that this process would produce positive results for all sides.

The informal conference “A larger, stronger union” was hosted by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and brought together ministers from EU member states and candidate countries, and potential members.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was also among the participants.