Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will attend an informal meeting with his EU counterparts, also called the "Gymnich meeting", on Thursday in Poland’s Warsaw, Foreign Ministry sources said Tuesday.
According to the sources, during the event, Fidan will meet with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, along with the foreign ministers of EU member states, candidate and potential candidate countries. Last August, Fidan also took part in a Gymnich meeting, the first time the EU had invited Türkiye in five years, seen as part of the bloc's efforts to revitalize relations with Türkiye.
The meeting is considered important for strengthening dialogue channels between Türkiye and the EU and for taking concrete steps in bilateral relations, including Türkiye's EU accession process. The meeting is expected to see exchanges of views on the current challenges to European foreign and security policy, particularly on boosting resilience in the face of hybrid threats.
At the meeting, Fidan is expected to stress that strategic cooperation between NATO and the EU is essential for Europe's security and that Türkiye and the EU should improve information sharing by increasing coordination and cooperation against hybrid threats.
He is also expected to underline that terrorism threatens international security by triggering hybrid threats, that Türkiye's efforts to combat terrorism also protect the stability of the shared region, that Türkiye expects concrete and meaningful support from its allies and partners on this, and that EU initiatives to improve Europe's defense industry capacity must involve non-EU partners like Türkiye, which has a strong defense industry and military experience.
Türkiye's expectation that the EU should take concrete steps to sustainably and predictably strengthen Türkiye-EU ties will also be conveyed at the meeting. It will be emphasized that the continuation of structural dialogue mechanisms and modernizing the customs union and trade relations to meet current needs, plus addressing visa issues, are among the priorities.
Fidan will also hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the meeting.
Türkiye has the longest history with the union and the longest negotiation process. The country signed an association agreement with the EU’s predecessor in 1964, the European Economic Community (EEC), which is usually regarded as a first step to eventually becoming a candidate. Applying for official candidacy in 1987, Türkiye had to wait until 1999 to be granted the status of a candidate country. The process involved opening and then provisionally closing individual chapters, each representing a specific policy area, upon fulfilling the established criteria. By 2016, only 16 out of the 35 chapters had been opened, and only one had been provisionally closed. By 2018, the accession talks reached a standstill. The EU expressed dissatisfaction with what it viewed as a lack of progress on key issues, while Türkiye criticized what it perceived as double standards and a lack of commitment from the EU. This resulted in a de facto suspension of the accession process, leaving the future of Türkiye’s EU membership in a state of uncertainty.
