Regular report from the Commission on Turkey's progress towards accession 2003

Abstract

The European Council in Cardiff in June 1998 noted that the Commission would presenta report on Turkey based on Article 28 of the Association Agreement and the conclusionsof the Luxembourg European Council of December 1997. The Commission presented itsfirst Regular Report on Turkey in October 1998, together with the Regular Reports forthe other candidate countries.The Helsinki European Council meeting in December 1999 concluded that:"Turkey is a candidate State destined to join the Union on the basis of the samecriteria as applied to the other candidate States. Building on the existing EuropeanStrategy, Turkey, like other candidate States, will benefit from a pre-accessionstrategy to stimulate and support its reforms."As part of the pre-accession strategy, the Commission reports regularly to the EuropeanCouncil on progress made by each of the candidate countries in preparing formembership. Consequently, the Commission has published a series of yearly RegularReports on Turkey, covering the years 1998 to 2002.