On 7th March, EU leaders and Turkey met to discuss the implementation of the Joint Action Plan between EU and Turkey and discuss how to stop irregular migration, in particular the use of the Western Balkan route.

The main and most controversial achievement of this meeting was the confirmation from Turkey of the commitment to implement the bilateral Greek-Turkish readmission agreement in exchange of additional requests, which came quite unexpectedly on the eve of the meeting. In brief, Turkey agrees to accept the rapid return of all migrants not in need of international protection crossing from Turkey into Greece and to take back all irregular migrants apprehended on Turkish waters. The demands from Turkey in exchange are more money than the original €3 billion deal, visa waivers for Turks, a kick-start to EU accession talks and a commitment to resettle another Syrian from Turkey to the EU Member States for every Syrian readmitted by Turkey from Greek islands.

The meeting was reconvened to March 17, due to the impossibility to settle on all requests coming from Turkey, and many EU leaders expressed their anger against these new requests. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, for example, said he would be against a proposal under which Turkey would take refugees from the Greek islands in exchange for the EU automatically taking an equal number of asylum-seekers from Turkey and resettling them in the EU. Others are against the request for more money.

While EU leaders talk about how to send back refugees to Turkey, UN and various other organisations publicly questions the legality of such a deal. Collective expulsion of foreigners are not consistent with European and international law, according to Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Speaking at the European Parliament, he said:

“As a first reaction I’m 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. An asylum seeker should only be returned to a third state if the responsibility for assessing the particular asylum application in substance is assumed by the third country.”

As a reply, Jean-Claude Juncker stated that as Greece decided that Turkey is a “safe country”, namely a country where an asylum-seeker should (in the view of the country applying that rule) have applied for asylum instead, return policy are legal according to EU law. Very debatable if Turkey can be considered safe, for its citizens and for asylum seekers, say many organisations, like Amnesty International.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis