2 Chapters to Be Opened at December Summit, Ready for Energy

More pleasant news from a comfortably placid, even encouraging French presidency. From TDZ:

The European Union is expected to open two new negotiation chapters with Turkey during an intergovernmental conference scheduled to be held on Dec. 18 and EU term president France would like to open more, were it not for problems beyond its control, French Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet has said.

France actually wanted to open more negotiation chapters during its presidency, which will finish at the end of December, Jouyet told a group of journalists on Wednesday at a reception held at the Turkish ambassador's residence in Paris to mark the Turkish Republic's 85th anniversary. However, it may not be possible to open a third or fourth chapter due to factors unrelated to the French term presidency, Jouyet added without elaborating. Sources told Today's Zaman that technical preparations had been completed for the opening of talks on the chapter on energy, but that this cannot be done due to objections from Greek Cyprus, which is at odds with Turkey over its planned oil exploration in the Mediterranean. The Anatolia news agency, meanwhile, quoted anonymous diplomatic sources as saying that chapters on the free movement of capital and on the information society and media would be opened. The same sources said Turkey was also technically ready for the opening of the chapter on energy but noted that this is not yet possible due to certain objections from within the EU.