EU-Turkey
migration deal on life support
Countries
have attacked nearly every aspect of the agreement leaders hope to
finalize at this week’s summit.
By JACOPO BARIGAZZI
3/14/16, 8:12 PM CET
Opposition
intensified Monday to a proposed EU-Turkey deal to try to cut off the
flow of migrants into Europe, as diplomats scrambled to balance
Ankara’s demands with those of several key European governments.
EU leaders aim to
ratify the agreement at a summit in Brussels on Thursday. The
proposed deal requires Turkey to take back migrants who reach the EU
illegally in exchange for a €6 billion payment plus promises to
lift visa restrictions on Turks traveling to Europe and speed up
talks on Turkey’s membership in the bloc.
But a series of
events — including formal objections from at least five countries
about the plan, the political fallout from German elections and a
terrorist attack in Ankara — cast doubt on how the final agreement
would come together. Diplomats said Monday that several changes to
the deal were being discussed.
Since the outlines
of the deal were first approved last week by EU leaders at a summit
with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, the proposal has
attracted a steady stream of harsh criticism from governments across
the bloc. Leaders of those countries have spent the past week coming
to grips with the plan, which was dropped on them by surprise by
Davutoğlu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel just as their March 7
summit was getting underway.
A new draft of the
proposal circulating Monday included few new details beyond what was
agreed in principle by EU leaders last week. But Donald Tusk, the
president of the European Council, was already trying to allay
national concerns about the plan as he mounted a last-ditch
diplomatic effort to ensure a consensus behind it.
A talking-points
paper prepared by Tusk’s office and obtained by POLITICO said the
proposal to resettle one Syrian refugee for each refugee returned to
Turkey was “temporary and extraordinary” and that migrants
returned to Turkey would be “protected in accordance with
international standards.”
But it also did not
rule out new resettlements or relocations: “Should the number of
returns exceed the numbers provided for by these commitments, this
agreement will be subject to review,” says the paper. That language
could anger Hungary, which said it will accept the deal with Turkey
only if there are no more resettlements. The document does not
mention visa liberalization, new money and new “chapters” of the
EU membership process being opened, as there’s no agreement on
these areas, diplomats said.
National objections
Still, diplomats
said Monday they were optimistic that a deal will be approved this
week and officials stressed the importance of taking decisive action
as refugees continue to arrive in the EU by the thousands —
overwhelming the ability of countries like Greece to deal with them.
But first they will
have to address the concerns of several countries that have raised
red flags, including: Cyprus, which opposes any deal to move forward
on EU membership for Turkey until Ankara fully respects all the
commitments made with Nicosia; Bulgaria, which wants the agreement to
also focus on the migration route on its border with Turkey; and
France and Spain, which have raised humanitarian concerns.
Spain was the most
recent country to signal its opposition to Turkey’s demands. The
country’s foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, called
the proposed agreement with Ankara “unacceptable” in remarks to
reporters Monday.
“We interpret it
as contrary to the international law, to the Geneva Convention and to
the European treaties,” he said before a meeting of EU foreign
ministers, echoing concerns made by other countries and by
humanitarian groups about the plan to send migrants back from the EU
to Turkey.
Aid groups and
non-governmental organizations were also unrelenting in their
criticism of the arrangement, saying it amounted to sending refugees
back to a country like Turkey that doesn’t fully respect the Geneva
Convention.
Further complicating
the political scenario around the deal: the drubbing taken by
Merkel’s party in German regional elections Sunday, a result seen
as a referendum on the chancellor’s refugee policy. The outcome
gave ammunition to critics of an EU migration policy that has largely
been driven by Merkel.
“I expect we can
make a deal with Turkey, but I have always said we can’t put
ourselves at the mercy of Turkey,” said Austrian Foreign Minister
Sebastian Kurz on Monday.
EU officials
continue to insist that a deal is possible and that the final
agreement will be legally and ethically defensible. European
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said after the last summit
that it is “legally feasible,” but acknowledged a few days later
that both Greece and Turkey might have to make legislative changes in
order to make it compliant with the Geneva Convention.
Juncker’s
spokesman, Margaritis Schinas, continued to defend the deal Monday,
telling reporters that “as far as the Commission is concerned this
pre-agreement is a legal agreement.”
‘No European
consensus’
Diplomats said this
week that much depends on Greece, with questions still outstanding on
whether it will be able to carry out key elements of the plan, such
as case-by-case decisions on the status of refugees for Syrians to be
sent back from Greece to Turkey.
“What is unclear
here is whether Greece is the problem or the solution,” said one
diplomat.
Other diplomats
stressed that since the deal does not include a massive resettlement
program from Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, where the majority of Syrian
refugees are, it could have little impact in offering alternatives to
smugglers — a supposed benefit that leaders offered as one of the
main selling points of the deal with Turkey.
But the concerns
raised in recent days by governments across the EU — though clearly
aimed at domestic political audiences as much as at the deal itself —
will be hard to ignore.
“There cannot be
any concessions on the matter of human rights or the criteria for
visa liberalization,” French President François Hollande said
Saturday, referring to one of Ankara’s conditions for the deal.
Bulgaria’s
objections came Friday in a letter to Tusk from Prime Minister Boyko
Borissov, who wrote that the agreement should also focus on the
migration route on Turkey’s border with Bulgaria, as well as
maritime borders between Turkey in the EU, including in the Black
Sea.
Some of the
Bulgarian requests have been incorporated in the draft document being
prepared for the summit, said one diplomat familiar with preparations
for the meeting later this week.
Despite the
criticism from their EU counterparts and from opposition leaders at
home, Turkish leaders remain bullish about the prospects for the visa
liberalization deal.
Cyprus, an EU
country still partly occupied by Turkish troops, is sticking by its
opposition to opening new chapters in Ankara’s accession talks with
Europe. “We will not lift our veto on those chapters,” Cypriot
Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides told POLITICO on Friday.
Another Turkish
proposal in the draft deal, to set up a safe zone in Syria for
refugees, has little support from anyone and also seems in trouble,
sources said Monday.
“There is no
European consensus on a safe zone in Syria,” said a diplomat.
Turkey’s ‘dream’
Despite the
criticism from their EU counterparts and from opposition leaders at
home, Turkish leaders remain bullish about the prospects for the visa
liberalization deal. Davutoğlu last week called on opposition
members in the Turkish parliament to pass the legislative reforms
required by the EU by May 1 in order to meet the deal’s speeded-up
timetable.
“We need the
opposition’s support,” Davutoğlu said. “Let them not block
parliament with an obstructive stance and let’s pass these laws.
This is a 50-60-year-old dream. We will make it real for our
citizens.
Turkey’s
president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, tried to allay Western leaders’
humanitarian concerns by saying that unlike some EU governments,
Turkey would not behave “hypocritically” by closing its borders
when faced with a humanitarian catastrophe.
“We have to accept
the people escaping bombs with an open-door policy from now on,”
Erdoğan said on Saturday.
It all adds up to
another difficult week of diplomacy for Tusk, who is charged with
finalizing the deal before the summit on Thursday and Friday. The
European Council president travels to Cyprus Tuesday to meet with the
country’s president and was also expected to make a trip to Ankara
before the summit.
“Nobody is saying
the agreement would mean the end of the migration crisis but if
properly implemented it is a step forward,” said another diplomat.
Hans von der
Burchard and Alev Scott contributed to this article.
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