Analysis: Today's decision on starting EU membership talks with Turkey comes after more than 40 years during which Ankara has been knocking on Europe's door.
However, a start date for negotiations offers no guarantee that Turkey will ever actually join the EU, and there is no question of full membership before 2014.
Ankara insists its membership bid should be treated the same as all previous applications to join the EU and that the goal must be for Turkey to be a full and equal member-state.
The Commission President, Mr José Manuel Barroso, appeared to endorse this ambition yesterday, calling for no special conditions to be imposed on Turkey.
"Our vision for Turkey is clear. We are not looking for some kind of halfway house, or midway deal. If we start negotiations with Turkey it should be with full EU membership in mind. There must be no last-minute conditions, no new hurdles to overcome," he said.
Most EU member-states acknowledge that Turkey's case is unique, however, on account of its size, its poverty and its overwhelmingly Muslim population.
The Dutch EU Presidency has proposed a framework for all future accessions to the EU, which diplomats acknowledge is designed mainly for Turkey. The framework sets out tough mechanisms for ensuring that Turkey implements reforms necessary for joining.
Ankara can expect "long transition periods" or "permanent safeguard measures" to limit the free movement of people and to reduce the cost of extending EU structural funds and agricultural subsidies to Turkey. Individual member-states could be allowed to impose lengthy or even permanent restrictions on immigration from Turkey.
The concept of permanent restrictions on labour movement is unprecedented in the EU, and the European Commission yesterday expressed concern about such an innovation. The framework makes clear that Turkey will not join the EU until 2014.
The accession talks could be suspended in the case of a "serious and persistent" breach by Turkey of the principles of "liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law on which the Union is founded".
Even if Turkey fulfils all the EU's conditions, adopts all the necessary legislation and makes the political and economic reforms demanded by Brussels, its application to join the EU could be vetoed by any member-state.
Accession treaties must be approved by all member-states but have, until now, been endorsed through parliamentary procedures.
President Jacques Chirac of France has held out the prospect of putting Turkey's EU membership to a referendum, a move that could be followed in other countries.
The Dutch proposal suggests that negotiations with Turkey should be accompanied by an "intensive political and cultural dialogue", and Mr Barroso said yesterday that Ankara must make its case to Europe's citizens as well as its leaders.
"The challenge for Turkey is to win the hearts and minds of those European citizens open to, but not yet fully convinced of, Turkey's European destiny," he said.