The European Commission recommended on Wednesday visa-free travel inside Europe's Schengen borderless zone for around 80 million Turkish citizens.

Turkey has five benchmarks, out of an initial total of 72, to fulfill by the end of June, according to the European Commission, the European Union's executive body.

"Turkey has made impressive progress, particularly in recent weeks, on meeting the benchmarks of its visa liberalization roadmap," European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said in Brussels on Wednesday.

The five remaining benchmarks touch on issues including: measures to prevent corruption, data protection in line with EU standards, cooperation with EU's law enforcement agency Europol, judicial cooperation on criminal matters with all EU member states and "revising the legislation and practices on terrorism in line with European standards".

"There is still work to be done as a matter of urgency but if Turkey sustains the progress made, they can meet the remaining benchmarks," he added.Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, accompanied by Turkey's EU Minister Volkan Bozkır, spoke to reporters on Wednesday, saying, "As Turkey, we are satisfied with the point we have arrived at; our aim is full membership to EU."Çavuşoğlu added that the visa liberation builds popular support for EU accession in Turkey.Turkey must also begin the use of biometric passports containing fingerprint information for travelers wishing to benefit from visa-free access. Turkish citizens have till the year-end to change their passports. Çavuşoğlu added that the renewals for passports will begin starting June 1.5 benchmarks still to be met by Turkey:

A press release by the European Commission has outlined the five benchmarks which are still need to be met by Turkey before June 2016: