TEPAV organized an event on December 23, 2008 with the participation of Mr. Hugh Pope, International Crisis Group's Turkey and Cyprus expert. In this meeting, Pope shared with the audience the outcomes of the ICG's most recently published report on Turkey-EU relations. Pope mentioned the following issues during his presentation:

2009 will be a very critical year in terms of Turkey-EU relations in which Turkish prospects for EU membership are at make or break stage. Domestic crisis over the past two years have slowed national reform, betrayed the promise of a new constitution and undermined the political will needed to pursue accession negotiations. According to Pope, little change is expected before the March 2009 local elections. Pope suggests that in order to move forward in this proces, Turkey needs to speed up the reforms and the EU states need to put more emphasis in reinvigorating reform. According to Pope, both sides need to move quickly on several fronts to break out of this downward spiral before one or the other breaks off the negotiations.

In the second part of his speech, Pope listed some of the reports' recommendations to the Government of Turkey as well as to the EU and the Governments of EU Member States in order to avoid a negative scenario in 2009. Pope's presentation was followed by comments and questions from the audience that consisted of foreign missions, renowned columnists and Turkish policy makers.