THE EU’S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
A year ago, the EU and Turkey made a controversial deal to stem the flow of refugees into Europe. How has it panned out?
Why was a deal necessary?
Because in 2015, Europe, for the first time in its modern history, received a mass influx of refugees from outside the European continent. In the course of the year, more than one million “irregular migrants” arrived in the EU. Most were fleeing civil war and instability in the Middle East: about half were Syrians, 20% Afghans and 10% Iraqis. Some 885,000 of them came to Europe via Greece’s islands in the Aegean Sea, such as Lesbos and Chios, just off the Turkish coast. Humanitarian concern – fed by the image of the Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, who had died at sea and was washed up on a Turkish beach – led to Germany announcing it would accept all asylum seekers. That substantially increased the migrant flow and this, in turn, led to a backlash: borders were closed across Europe, and in March 2016 a deal known as the Eu-turkey Statement was announced.
What did the deal agree?
It stated that all migrants crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands whose asylum requests were rejected, or who did not apply for asylum, would be sent back to Turkey. But for every Syrian returned, another registered Syrian refugee in Turkey would be resettled in the EU. Turkey also agreed to take extensive measures to stop people-smuggling, closing all known routes into the EU. In return, Turkey, which now hosts 2.5 million Syrian refugees, would get s3bn in aid from the EU to support both “refugees and host communities”. Talks concerning Turkey’s accession to the EU would be “re-energised”, and steps taken to allow Turkish citizens visa-free travel to Europe.
And how well has the deal worked?
It has dramatically stemmed the numbers of migrants entering the EU via Greece – from 885,000 in 2015, to 30,000 since March 2016. In the months before the deal, average arrivals to the Greek islands exceeded 1,700 a day (on one single day in October 2015, 10,000 arrived); recent figures show an average daily arrival of 43. In the year since the deal, 80 people have been reported dead or missing in the Aegean; in the same period in 2015-16, 1,145 people died. The number of migrants returned to Turkey has actually been small (about 1,500), while 3,500 Syrians from Turkey have been resettled in Europe under the 1:1 rule (Germany has taken most). And predictions that migrants from the Middle East would simply use another route have proved false. Though more people than ever arrived in the EU via the central Mediterranean route to Italy and Malta – 181,000 in 2016 – these were largely Africans.
So it has been a great success?
In the broader political sense, yes. It has defused the migration crisis, and taken the pressure off EU politicians. Many people, however, have objected to the idea that refugees should be returned to Turkey: the EU claims this is legal, because Turkey is a “safe” country in which to seek asylum. But Human Rights Watch, among others, rejects that claim: refugees in Turkey, says the organisation, have limited access to education, jobs and health care; and Turkey has “forcibly returned” some asylum seekers to Syria. But the objections aren’t just confined to Turkey.
What are the wider concerns?
The deal, its critics argue, sets a “very dangerous precedent by putting at risk the very principle of the right to seek refuge” (see box). By “externalising” its borders, Europe is effectively contracting out its humanitarian obligations to foreign nations – often poorer ones with dubious human rights records. Indeed, in a bid to cut off the central Mediterranean refugee route, the EU is currently seeking a similar deal with Libya and other north African nations, even though the UN has reported torture and executions in Libya’s migrant camps.
So what is the alternative?
In reality, there is no “viable alternative”, argues Gerald Knaus of the European Stability Initiative, the think tank that helped devise the Turkey deal. “You can’t control a sea border without cooperating with your neighbour on the other side. You can’t build fences on water.” For Knaus, the main weakness of the Turkey deal is what is happening not in Turkey but in Greece. Despite an international humanitarian effort, conditions in the camps are often terrible. On the Greek islands, some 13,000 people – and at times, more than 16,000 – have been crammed into facilities built to accommodate 9,000 or less. A recent report found widespread evidence of suicide attempts, self-harm, abuse and sexual violence.
Why are conditions there so bad for migrants?
Because despite the dramatic fall in arrivals, those who do come in find it hard to get out. In March 2016, the Western Balkans route from Greece via Macedonia into the rest of the EU was largely closed off. And despite calls to relocate pre-march 2016 asylum seekers based in Greece to the rest of the EU, less than 10,000 have been resettled (the UK has taken none). Meanwhile, the Greek asylum system is slow, and its courts are unwilling to send migrants back to Turkey. As a result, some 62,000 refugees are now stranded in Greek camps, from the Macedonian border to the Aegean, their future uncertain, with no money and no right to work.
What’s the future of the deal?
The biggest immediate threat comes from Turkey. President Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian rule has stalled talks with the EU on accession and visa liberalisation for now; Erdogan, in turn, has threatened to scrap the deal and transfer Turkey’s millions of migrants to Europe. However, Syrian migration into Turkey has largely stopped since 2015, and the wretched conditions in Greece are a clear disincentive to would-be migrants. Syrians in Turkey don’t see “much point in moving”, says Professor Heaven Crawley, a migration expert at Coventry University. “They don’t see the point of being stuck in Greece.”