Europe
finds no delight in Turkish deal
Planned
deal with Turkey attacked from all sides.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG 3/8/16, 9:42 PM CET Updated 3/8/16, 9:51 PM CET
Europe’s plan to
grant Turkey more aid and closer ties in exchange for Ankara’s help
in keeping refugees at bay faced intense criticism across the
Continent Tuesday, foreshadowing a tough public fight in the days
ahead as officials rush to secure a deal.
German and EU
leaders have portrayed the proposed arrangement as a major
breakthrough; Europe’s best, possibly last, hope to bring the
refugee crisis under control.
But a broad spectrum
of critics, from national and European MPs, to the UN’s refugee
agency to Amnesty International, assailed the plan, arguing it would
force the EU to abandon its core principles.
“Clearly, Europe
is willing to do anything, including compromising essential human
rights and refugee law principles, to stem the flow of refugees and
migrants to Europe,” Aurelie Ponthieu, a top official at Doctors
Without Borders, said in a statement.
Under the proposed
framework hashed out between the EU and Turkey at a special summit
Monday, Europe would double financial assistance to help Turkey cope
with the refugee crisis to €6 billion. More controversial: Brussels
would accelerate Turkey’s EU membership negotiations and drop visa
restrictions for all Turks traveling to the EU.
In return, Turkey
would agree to take back all refugees who arrive in Greece illegally.
For every Syrian sent back to Turkey, the EU would accept one Syrian
from Turkey.
The aim of the
strategy would be to dissuade Syrians from trying to reach Greece in
the first place. Any Syrian who traveled to Greece illegally and was
sent back to Turkey would end up at the back of the queue for legal
entry.
Greek Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras and his Turkish counterpart, Ahmed Davutoğlu, met in
the Turkish city of Izmir on Tuesday, to reaffirm their commitment to
closer cooperation.
“As a first
reaction I am deeply concerned about any arrangement that would
involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another,
without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under
international law,” Filippo Grandi, the UN’s top refugee
official, told the European Parliament Tuesday. “Europe is facing a
moment of truth. This is the time to reaffirm the values upon which
it was built.”
Opponents of the
deal argue that Turkey has shown little respect for Western values.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has mounted a brutal offensive
against the country’s Kurdish minority in recent months, casting
them as domestic terrorists. He has also cracked down on critical
media, orchestrating a raid on the country’s biggest opposition
newspaper just last week.
While many of the
critics could be described as the usual suspects — NGOs and
left-leaning political groups — conservatives also expressed
serious reservations.
In Germany, the
Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Angela Merkel’s
center-right conservatives, vowed “massive resistance” against
the planned lifting of visa restrictions for Turks traveling to
Europe. Marcel Huber, a key aide to CSU leader Horst Seehofer, said
the party was also skeptical about a proposal to trade refugees in
Greece for different ones in Turkey, arguing there was no guarantee
it would lead to a drop in refugee numbers.
“We’re going to
have a close look to ensure there is a balanced trade-off,” he said
in Munich.
Clock is ticking
European officials
don’t have much time to overcome such resistance.
Leaders hope to
finalize the deal with Turkey at next week’s EU summit, set to
begin March 17 in Brussels.
The first priority
is to win backing from the European Parliament, which until now has
been left largely on the sidelines. The Parliament’s endorsement is
necessary for the visa liberalization plan to go forward.
Despite strong
opposition in some quarters, a majority of MEPs is likely to end up
supporting the blueprint. The center-right European People’s Party,
the largest parliamentary group, signaled its endorsement Tuesday.
“We are fighting
the smugglers, we are stopping illegal migration together with the
Turks” — that was the main message from the EU-Turkey summit, EPP
chief Manfred Weber said. “At the same time, we are offering means
for legal migration.”
National governments
also appeared to be willing to back the deal. After months of
divisive debate over how to deal with the influx, a consensus evolved
at Monday’s summit that a deal with Turkey, however distasteful, is
Europe’s least bad option.
Most important, the
bloc’s most influential member, Germany, is pushing hard for an
agreement.
Nonetheless, working
out the deals will be fraught. In addition to settling the legal
questions surrounding granting Turkey visa liberalization and
advancing its membership application, EU members will have to come to
an agreement over how to resettle those refugees sent from Turkey.
The hope is that few
will come. The deal, along with stricter patrols of the sea corridor
between Turkey and Greece, could convince many refugees not to make
the trip.
If fewer come, not
many would have to be resettled in the EU. Union officials said they
only anticipated having to resettle about 10,000 Syrians coming from
Turkey. Higher numbers would be an indication that the arrangement
wasn’t working.
The EU has existing
quotas to accept about 180,000 refugees across the bloc. But many
states, in particular Eastern European countries, have balked at
accepting the refugees.
If there are signs
the numbers of new arrivals are dwindling, however, that may soon
change.
Polish Foreign
Minister Witold Waszczykowski told Italy’s Corriere della Sera in
an interview published Tuesday that his country was prepared to take
in its quota of 7,000 refugees, provided Poland can vet them first.
“You cannot make
the selection and then send them to us,” he said.
Authors:
Matthew Karnitschnig
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