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At the Cologne European Council held on 3-4 June 1999, the initiative was taken by the German Presidency with a view to ensuring the recognition of Turkey's candidate status on an equal footing with the others. Compared to the previous Government in Germany, the new Coalition Government which came to power in October 1998 seemed to have taken a more positive line regarding Turkey's quest for EU membership. However, the objections of some EU Member States prevented this initiative from being realised. As a consequence, the EU re-frained from taking a decision to include Turkey in the accession process. This constituted yet another failure of the EU to recognise Turkey's candidate status clearly and unambiguously. The EU Foreign Ministers, at their Gymnichtype meeting on 4 and 5 September in Saariselka, in Finland, held discussions on aid to Turkey following the earthquake in northwestern part of Turkey in August 1999 and on future relations between Turkey and the Union. At this meeting, consensus was reached for a new humanitarian aid package of 30 million Euros in addition to the two emergency humanitarian aid packages of 2 million euros each that had been granted to Turkey in the week following the earthquake. On the other hand, no agreement was reached at Saariselka on Turkey's candidate status. In the meantime, the European Investment Bank decided to launch a loan of 600 million Euro to help Turkey tackle the consequences of the earthquake and the European Commission put forward the proposal to allocate to Turkey a "substantial part" of the resources of the MEDA II programme for the 2000-2007 period. In preparation for the European Council to be held in Helsinki in 10-11 December 1999, the Commission issued its second regular Report on the progress of Turkey towards accession on 13 October 1999. In the Composite Paper which was presented together with the Progress Report, the Commission took important steps by proposing that Turkey be considered as a candidate country and backed this with concrete actions similar to those provided for the other candidates. Turkey welcomed these proposals that would prepare her for full membership to the EU. The Helsinki European Council held on 10-11 December 1999 produced a breakthrough in Turkey-EU relations. At Helsinki, Turkey was officially recognised without any precondition as a candidate state on an equal footing with the other candidate states. While recognising Turkey's candidate status, the Helsinki Summit Conclusions endorsed the proposals of the Commission made on 13 October 1999. Thus, Turkey, like other candidate states, would reap the benefits from a pre-accession strategy to stimulate and support its reforms. This would also include an Accession Partnership, which would be dawn up accordingly, combined with a National Program for the adoption of the acquis. Turkey would participate in Community programs open to other candidate countries and agencies and would be invited to the meetings between candidate states and the Union in the context of the accession process. Finally, a single framework for coordinating all sources of EU financial assistance for pre-accession would be created.The National Program As foreseen in the Helsinki European Council conclusions, the EU Commission started to prepare an Accession Partnership for Turkey, which was adopted on 8 March 2001. After the approval of the Accession Partnership by the EU, the Turkish Government announced its own National Program for the Adoption of the EU acquis on 19 March 2001. The National Program was submitted to the EU Commission on 26 March 2001. The National Program was produced with a careful appreciation of the short and medium term priorities as spelled out in the Accession Partnership. Following these important developments, the Turkey-EU Association Council began to meet regularly. The Association Council met three times in the 2000-2002 period. At its meeting of 11 April 2000, 8 subcommittees were established to carry out an analytical examination of the level of harmonization of the Turkish legislation with the acquis communautaire. In the subsequent meetings, progress achieved within the framework of Turkey's pre-accession stra-tegy was evaluated and a number of decisions were taken, concerning Turkey's participation in Community programs, providing Turkey with full access to TAIEX offices and the establishment of joint consultation mechanisms that will convene re-gularly in order to discuss trade matters related to the Customs Union. Sitwell Group Samat SA