http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/18/eu-strikes-deal-with-turkey-to-send-back-refugees-from-greece?CMP=share_btn_tw
EU strikes deal with Turkey to send back refugees
Refugees arriving in Greece from Sunday to be sent back across Aegean in
deal that ‘re-energises’ talks on Turkish EU membership
The EU has struck a deal with Turkey that would mean all refugees and
migrants arriving in Europe from Sunday being sent back across the
Aegean Sea.
The European council president, Donald Tusk, cleared key sticking points
with the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, during talks on Friday
morning. “The Turkey agreement has been approved,” Finland’s prime
minister, Juha Sipilä, said on Twitter.
The agreement means that all refugees and migrants arriving in Greece
from Sunday can expect to be returned to Turkey. The accord, which is
expected to be formally signed off later on Friday, represents a
climbdown by Turkey, which had been pushing to restart talks in five areas.
In return for taking back refugees, Turkey can expect “re-energised”
talks on its EU membership, with the promise of negotiations on one
policy area to be opened before July.
The EU has also agreed to speed up the disbursement of €3bn (£2.3bn)
intended to help Syrian refugees in Turkey, with new projects to be
agreed this week.
Turkey has promised that all returned people will be treated in line
with international law, including guarantees that they will not be
returned to the countries they have fled from.
The controversial one-for-one deal remains intact: for every Syrian
refugee the EU sends back across the Aegean, a Syrian in Turkey will be
given a new home in Europe.
But the number of Syrians who can be rehoused in Europe from Turkey has
been capped at 72,000, far short of the 108,000 a year recommended by
international aid agencies, if the EU is to do its fair share. The EU’s
relocation scheme will be stopped once more than 72,000 people have been
settled in Europe, amid concerns among some EU members of an open-ended
commitment.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, earlier criticised Europe’s
“shameful” record on refugees, as the two sides struggled to reach a
deal aimed at stemming the flow of people to Greece.
About 45,000 people are trapped in Greece, including 14,000 who are
living in squalid conditions near the Greek-Macedonian border at
Idomeni, as they are barred from travelling onwards to central and
northern Europe.
Although the broad outlines of the deal were agreed ten days ago between
Turkey and Germany, the EU later rowed back on its offer to Turkey amid
concern from other EU countries about giving too much away.
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Cyprus vowed to block any plan to restart Turkey’s EU membership talks
over the decades-long dispute about the divided island. As a result, the
European side would only agree to re-start membership talks on one
policy “chapter”, on budget, not the five Ankara had demanded.
EU officials were also at pains to stress that Turkey cannot get
visa-free travel for its citizens by its preferred June deadline,
without following 73 stringent conditions, only half of which have been met.
The EU’s common approach to Turkey talks was agreed last night, as were
safeguards designed to ensure that mass return of refugees and migrant
would be in line with international law.
Anyone making an asylum claim in Greece would be guaranteed a personal
interview and the right of appeal. In theory, this would allow asylum
seekers, for example Kurds, to make a case for not being sent back to
Turkey.
But the 20 March deadline brings huge practical challenges. EU member
states have not been able to send asylum seekers back to Greece since a
2011 court ruling that found refugees suffered “degrading treatment” and
faced inadequate processes that meant they were at risk of being sent
back to countries, where they faced persecution.
Athens and the EU authorities will have to build a functioning asylum
system in the Greece within less than 48 hours. Thousands of extra staff
- judges, case officers, border guards and translators - will need to be
sent to the Greek islands to ensure claims can be processed.
The returns programme will not apply to the 45,000 refugees and migrants
now in Greece, who can expect to be relocated to other countries in the EU.
One EU diplomat claimed that member states were showing new interest in
taking in refugees from Greece and Italy, in response to “the shame of
Idomeni”.
But the relocation scheme has had a painfully slow start: since the EU
promised to place 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy elsewhere in
the bloc, only 937 people have been found a new home.
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