Opening of Chapter 17 - Economic and Monetary Policy in Türkiye's Accession Negotiations

Chapter 17 on Economic and Monetary Policy will be opened to negotiations at the 11th meeting of the Türkiye-EU Intergovernmental Accession Conference to be held in Brussels on 14 December 2015. This brings the total number of the opened chapters to 15.

During the conference, Türkiye will be represented by Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Ambassador Volkan Bozkır, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Şimşek and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoglu.

The Chapter on Economic and Monetary Policy mainly covers issues such as the independence of central banks in Member States, prohibition of monetary financing of public sector by central banks and prohibition of privileged access of the public authorities to financial institutions. It also provides for arrangements to build a stronger economic structure in a number of areas and enhance the coordination of economic policy among Member States.

The opening of Chapter 17 without any opening benchmarks is the most important indicator of Türkiye's high level of alignment in this field. Negotiations in this chapter will progress at a satisfying pace in the forthcoming period thanks to the current high level of alignment.

The opening of Chapter 17 is also the first concrete indication of the political will demonstrated at the Türkiye-EU Summit of 29 November 2015, which started a new period for re-energizing Türkiye-EU relations and Türkiye's EU accession process.