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The New York Times
BRUSSELS — European leaders edged closer early on Friday to a deal to return asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey despite a host of legal, political and moral issues raised by their latest effort to quell the migrant crisis.
The common stance agreed by the European Union’s 28 national leaders still needs the approval of Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. He flew here late Thursday for face-to-face talks on Friday.
Those negotiations will revolve around what incentives to grant Turkey, which is not a European Union member, in return for Turkey’s taking on the job of housing more of the migrants while they wait for word on whether they qualify for resettlement in Western Europe.
“We need to put all our efforts into achieving an agreement with Turkey,” Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, told an early morning news conference. “These will be negotiations that will certainly be anything but easy,” she warned.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, the body representing European leaders; Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive agency; and Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, were expected to lead what are intended to be a final round of negotiations with Mr. Davutoglu on Friday morning.
If Mr. Davutoglu makes objections, the 28 national leaders could meet again during the day to consider adjusting their positions.
At stake in Brussels is not only Europe’s ability to manage one of the most pressing crises of recent times, but also the influence of Ms. Merkel, who helped develop the plan at a time when much of the rest of the Continent — and a substantial portion of her own country — had turned against her policy of welcoming refugees.
Before Mr. Davutoglu’s arrival, the leaders had grappled with the biggest hurdles threatening a plan that was sprung on them by Ms. Merkel at a summit meeting early this month.
With humanitarian groups saying such a plan would violate international law on refugees, and national governments raising their own concerns, the European leaders had faced an especially tricky challenge in finding consensus even as the flow of people toward Europe continues.
Tens of thousands of migrants are backed up in squalid camps in Greece after Macedonia closed its border crossing, blocking the way north.
In the session on Thursday, the leaders agreed to revise the proposal to address concerns about the plan. Refugees would be returned to Turkey with the assistance of the United Nations refugee agency, and each applicant for asylum in Greece would be “processed individually,” according to the proposal.
Even so, the European Union would still pledge to resettle one Syrian from a camp in Turkey in exchange for each Syrian who used an irregular route, like crossing the Aegean Sea, to reach Greece.
That system to exchange refugees was “abhorrent” and showed that “this deal remains at its core both legally and morally unsound,” Iverna McGowan, the head of the European institutions office for Amnesty International, said Thursday.
Another sticking point was ensuring that Cyprus did not veto a resumption of negotiations over Turkey’s eventual membership in the European Union. The talks were one of Ankara’s conditions. Unless the Turks take certain steps, like opening its ports to Cypriot ships, “we can do nothing,” President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus told reporters earlier on Thursday.
Leaders revised the proposal to give Cyprus further reassurances that there would be no immediate resumption of negotiations on European Union membership for Turkey, which has occupied the northern half of Cyprus since 1974. But the leaders confirmed they were prepared to give about $6.6 billion in aid to help organizations look after the nearly three million migrants already in Turkey.
The talks with Mr. Davutoglu later Friday still could be lengthy, forcing leaders to talk into the weekend or to schedule yet another meeting. Turkey has sought to drive a hard bargain with demands including an acceleration of talks on its membership of the bloc and, importantly for Ankara, visa-free travel for its citizens across most of Europe starting this summer.
In their proposal the Europeans said visa-free travel would depend on Turkey meeting several conditions.
Reflecting a general queasiness that many Europeans feel in making those concessions to Turkey, which has taken an authoritarian turn under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, told reporters earlier on Thursday that Europeans should not succumb to “what at times seems like blackmail” to reach a deal.
The plan brought to the surface a bewildering range of issues, including when any system of returning refugees to Turkey should start.
Greece does not yet have the legal infrastructure, including sufficient numbers of judges, to ensure that migrants are given a fair hearing before they are sent back to Turkey.
Yet waiting more than a few days to put such a system in force could create a powerful incentive for some of the millions of migrants currently in Turkey to make even more determined efforts to reach Europe.
“We all know obviously that if matters take too long then it will indeed have this pull effect, but we have not yet specified any specific date or day,” Ms. Merkel told the news conference.
There are also widespread concerns that the deal with Turkey will be of limited long term value if migrants scramble for alternatives, including boat trips across the Mediterranean Sea to reach Italian islands like Lampedusa or the island state of Malta, which is also a member of the European Union.
Alison Smale contributed reporting from Berlin.
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