European Union–Turkey relations

The purpose of the new methodology is, as Commissioner Olivr Vrhelyi said, to re-establish a credible perspective of the Western Balkans EU membership.

The United Kingdom leaving the European Union is a bad decision for the British, the union, and everyone else including Turkey, according to a retired Turkish diplomat.
"The U.K. has traditionally been one of the most forceful supporters of Turkish integration with the EU," Selim Kuneralp has told Hürriyet Daily News.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today that up to 250,000 migrants are fleeing the northwestern Syrian region of Idlib to Turkey, adding that Ankara is trying to prevent them from crossing the border, BTA quoted Reuters as saying.

Turkey cannot handle a fresh wave of migrants from Syria, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said on Dec. 23 and slammed the international community for "leaving Turkey alone" amid the refugee crisis.

Turkey sees a glimmer of hope in reviving its stalled accession process to the European Union in 2020 in the context of the new leadership taking the helm of key European institutions and with expectations of the accelerated reform process by the government.

The EU Commission announced on Dec. 18 that it will provide financial support to member states who made a collective pledge of more than 30,000 refugee resettlement places.

EU member countries made the pledge during the two-day Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, which was co‐hosted by the UN and Switzerland and co-convened by Turkey, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Germany and Pakistan.

France requests the European Commission (EC) to publish a new methodology of the negotiations with the candidate countries by January 2020.

Turkey could suspend its EU accession process if the EU pressure and threaten it with sanctions over the situation in Cyprus, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, quoted by RIA Novosti.

Turkey is "very important" to the European Union and trust must be rebuilt between the two sides, said the EU Parliament's new Turkey rapporteur.

A privileged special partnership would be a substitute for a full membership.
According to the proposal, financial support, special arrangements for access to European markets and other benefits would be offered to the Western Balkan countries in exchange for a "silent withdrawal" of full membership.