Press Release: 47th meeting of the EC-Turkey Association Council, Tuesday, 19 May 2009.

The EC-Turkey Association Council held its 47th meeting on Tuesday, 19 May 2009. The meeting was chaired by Mr Ahmet Davutoglu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey
and Head of the Turkish delegation. Mr Jan Kohout, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, led the European Union delegation (Troika format). Mr Olli Rehn,
Commissioner responsible for Enlargement, represented the European Commission. In line with the EU Council conclusions of 8 December 2008, EU noted progress
made by Turkey in its preparations for accession. Overall, at this stage, out of 35 chapters, ten have been opened and one provisionally closed. In addition, discussions on screening reports and EU Common Positions in a number of other chapters are ongoing. As concerns chapters for which opening benchmarks have been set, the EU invited Turkey to address them accordingly, and welcomed that Turkey has started preparations in this regard.