5 years on, stalled EU Turkey migrant deal remains a model

 

BRUSSELS -- Five years after it was signed, the widely-criticized deal between the European Union and Turkey aimed at preventing migrants from entering Greece no longer works, but the Europeans insist it has served them well and will do so again. Not only that, they want to do similar deals in northern Africa.

Recent signals from Brussels and Ankara suggest that an arrangement will be found to resuscitate the March 2016 “EU Turkey Statement” — which reduced migrant arrivals into the Greek islands to a relative trickle in a couple of years — and an update of its terms is likely.

“I think it should continue to be implemented and continue to be the key framework for cooperation on migration,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday, a week before he submits a report to a summit of the 27-nation bloc’s leaders on the troubled state of EU-Turkey ties.

For Borrell, the deal saved lives, stopped most people trying to cross the Aegean Sea to islands like Lesbos and Samos, and improved the circumstances of refugees in Turkey. But for aid groups, it created open-air prisons where thousands have languished in squalid conditions while others were blocked in Turkey.

Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s EU office, said that five years on, “15,000 women, men and children remain trapped in overcrowded camps.” She said it highlights the EU’s willingness to strike deals “based purely on political convenience with little regard for the inevitable human cost.”

The International Rescue Committee’s Imogen Sudbery says it’s sparked a mental health emergency.

“It has become crystal clear that outsourcing the EU’s migration management to non-EU countries is neither a humane, sustainable or workable solution,” she said.