Türkiye, EU to convene high-level business meeting after 3.5 years

Türkiye and the European Union will hold a high-level business dialogue meeting in Istanbul this week, after nearly three-and-a-half years in a bid to underline the importance of bilateral economic cooperation and amid Brussels' warning of circumvention of the sanctions against Russia.

"As the EU, we want to continue to engage with Türkiye on the political level in different areas. Commissioner [responsible for enlargement Oliver] Varhelyi will visit Türkiye in the coming week to meet his counterparts in the Turkish government and participate in the high-level business dialogue," head of the EU Delegation to Türkiye Ambassador Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview during a visit to Çanakkale over the weekend.

Varhelyi is expected to be in Türkiye on Oct. 24 and 25 where he will meet the officials from the government as well as the business world. His talks will follow the visit by Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Mark, who held talks in Ankara earlier in October.

Ankara and Brussels held the latest high-level economic dialogue meeting in February 2019. A resolution adopted by the EU in 2020 and in reaction to the escalation in the eastern Mediterranean suspended Ankara-Brussels high-level dialogue in many areas. The meeting in Istanbul will be held under a different title in order to overcome this hurdle.

Ambassador Meyer-Landrut also informed that Türkiye and the EU will have a high-level dialogue meeting on research and development in Brussels in mid-November as a sign of continued engagement between the two parties. "We have a very important economic relationship with Türkiye, as a candidate country and as part of EU-Türkiye customs...