The British Council, Centre for European Reform (CER) and Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) have jointly organised the fifth Bosphorus Conference on EU-Turkey relations. This high-level, invitation-only conference took place in Istanbul on 10-11 October 2008.

The conference opened on the evening of 10 October with a gala dinner and keynote speeches by Maxime Vergahen, Olli Rehn and Ali Babacan. The main seminar on the 11th emphasised frank, off-the-record discussion of some of the most important and controversial aspects of EU-Turkey relations, and was opened with keynote speeches by Ali Babacan, Carl Bildt and Baroness Cathy Ashton.

Among the participants of this year's conference were Ahmet Davutoğlu, Yaşar Yakış, Joost Lagendijk, Pierre Lellouche, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones and many other senior figures who discussed various aspects of Turkey's EU accession.

This year, the conference focused on the following topics:

			Update on EU-Turkey relations
			The EU, Turkey and the Caucasus
			The future shape of Europe

Read the key conclusions of the conference