EU-Turkey Agreement of March 18, 2016

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Volume of migratory flows across the Mediterranean into the EU in relation to the number of first-time asylum applications in Europe. The decline on the eastern Mediterranean route was accompanied by tighter controls on the Balkan route and the EU-Turkey agreement of March 18, 2016 .

As EU-Turkey Agreement , including refugee Deal or refugee pact is an agreement between the Republic of Turkey and the European Union (EU) called on 18 March 2016 which was completed by a ligature at least or a reduction in the refugee movement to achieve in the EU , which triggered the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe .

prehistory

Republic of Turkey

The number of Syrian refugees who came to Turkey as a result of the Syrian Civil War rose from around 100,000 in October 2012 to around 1.4 million in August 2014.

According to Turkey, there were over two million refugees in the country in mid-November 2015. More than 600,000 refugees left Turkey for Europe in 2015. The migration researcher Murat Erdogan is therefore certain that "many refugees who statistically continue to appear in Turkey have long been in Europe."

A bilateral return agreement between Greece and Turkey has existed since 2002, but has not been respected by Turkey; Of more than 9,000 withdrawal requests in 2014, Turkey only fulfilled six.

In February 2020, over 3.6 million registered refugees from Syria were in Turkey (as of March 5, 2020).

European Union

Under the pressure of very high numbers of refugees who came from Turkey via Greece to gain access to Western Europe in 2015 - without being able to rely on a functioning, uniform asylum policy of the European Union - EU heads of state and government were forced to act .

First of all, according to a press report by Standard , a proposal to support Turkey was drawn up in autumn 2015 by EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans and EU Council President Donald Tusk , which included visa facilitation and a deepening of the customs union . The EU representatives had already negotiated with Turkey, while at the same time envoys from German Chancellor Angela Merkel , under pressure from high migration pressure, had already been conducting their own negotiations since Christmas 2015 without the EU staff knowing about it. It was only by chance that the efforts of the Merkel government became known to the other EU negotiators. The Merkel solution included much larger financial contributions to Turkey than the Timmermann-Tusk approach and provided for the accelerated opening of new chapters of the EU accession negotiations with Turkey, although those involved knew that such an approach was not realistic from the others EU states would be supported. The text was formulated by Merkel and the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte .

In the absence of an alternative, the question of how to deal with the refugees fell back on an idea of ​​the activist Gerald Knaus and his European Stability Initiative , which was based on the theory that it would be in the interests of the Turkish government to have moderate governments active in Europe to help overcome the crisis in order to prevent potentially anti-Turkish forces from gaining influence in Europe in the course of the refugee crisis. Knaus sent the plan to the relevant authorities in autumn 2015 and named it the “Merkel Plan” after the German Chancellor.

In order to persuade the Turkish government to cooperate more closely in securing the EU's external borders, Chancellor Merkel, during her visit to Istanbul in mid-October 2015, made travel easier for Turkish citizens, more money for refugee camps and a new dynamic in Turkey's accession negotiations with the European Union in prospect. In particular, Turkey expected the EU to apply the Schengen Agreement , i.e. freedom of travel for Turkish citizens in the EU, from July 2016 when an agreement came into force .

On October 25, 2015, a 17-point plan with “immediate measures to reduce the number of refugees on the Balkan route” was adopted at a special summit of heads of state and government of the EU and other affected states .

Action plan of November 2015

On November 30, 2015, representatives of the European Union and Turkey agreed on an “ Action Plan to Limit Immigration via Turkey ”.

The agreed measures were intended to reduce the previously large number of asylum seekers immigrating from different countries of origin through Turkey to Europe. So that they are better supplied in Turkey and do not make their way to Europe, the EU promised to pay up to 3 billion euros. According to the will of the EU, the money should flow into concrete projects such as building schools. In return, Turkey wanted to improve border protection and sea rescue and take stronger action against illegal smugglers. It was also agreed that from summer 2016 the EU-Turkey readmission agreement of December 16, 2013 should come into full effect. This stipulates that migrants from third countries who entered the EU illegally will be returned to Turkey. In return, Turkey was assured that the visa requirement for Turkish nationals in the Schengen area would be lifted as soon as possible and that Turkey's accession negotiations with the European Union could be revived. Observers at the EU-Turkey summit pointed to the non-binding nature of the agreements and expressed concerns about the EU's rapprochement with Turkey.

The agreements made in the joint action plan of November 29, 2015 could not initially be implemented, on the one hand because the Italian government demanded a relaxation of the Stability Pact in exchange for its share of the three billion euros and on the other hand because the Turkish government at the end of January 2016 demanded a total of five billion euros and tried to force a say in the allocation of funds.

At the EU-Turkey summit in Brussels on 7./8. March 2016, representatives from the EU and Turkey discussed the implementation of the action plan and developed the proposals, on the basis of which the EU-Turkey Agreement of March 18, 2016 was finally concluded.

In the spring of 2016, the European Union (EU) began disbursing the aid funds provided for in the action plan. For example, aid funds were paid out or contracted for the following projects:

  • On March 4, 2016, a contract worth 40 million euros was signed with the World Food Program , which provides for the support of 735,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey with food rations via a system of electronic cards. Negotiations are being made with various partners about further support in the amount of 50 million euros. The funds are to be used in the short term for humanitarian aid, food and other relief supplies as well as measures in the areas of health, water supply, sanitation and protection.
  • On March 4, 2016, a contract was signed with UNICEF to provide 38 million euros to enable 110,000 Syrian children in Turkey to attend school in the current school year.

In the EU-Turkey agreement, an accelerated disbursement of the planned three billion euros and an increase in aid funds by a further three billion euros by the end of 2018 were finally agreed, and on June 1, 2016, the EU-Turkey withdrawal agreement of December 16, 2013 came into effect of the agreements of this EU-Turkey Agreement in full force.

agreement

On the basis of the EU-Turkey summit on 7./8. On March 18th , 2016 and the expanded proposals made there by Turkey, the European Council unanimously voted for an EU-Turkey agreement on March 18, 2016 in Brussels . In essence, the following was agreed:

  1. All new “irregular migrants” who arrive on the Greek islands after March 20, 2016 and who do not apply for asylum or whose application is rejected as unfounded or inadmissible, will be returned to Turkey at the expense of the European Union. The provisions of international law and EU law should be fully complied with during deportation. Once the migrants have been registered, their asylum applications are processed on a case-by-case basis; any kind of collective expulsion is contractually excluded.
  2. For every Syrian who is returned to Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian refugee is to be resettled from Turkey to the EU (1: 1 resettlement rule). On July 20, 2015, several EU countries had already committed to the resettlement of international asylum seekers. The remaining 18,000 places are now to be made available for the resettlement of migrants from Turkey. Further needs are to be covered with a similar voluntary agreement for up to 54,000 additional people.
  3. Turkey will take all necessary measures to prevent new sea or land routes for illegal migration from Turkey to the EU.
  4. After the uncontrolled border crossings between Turkey and the EU have been prevented or significantly reduced, the voluntary admission of Syrian refugees is activated for humanitarian reasons.
  5. The aim is to adhere to the visa liberalization schedule in view of the lifting of the visa requirement for Turkish citizens by the end of June 2016.
  6. In close cooperation with Turkey, the EU will accelerate the disbursement of the EUR 3 billion already allocated in the Action Plan of November 30, 2015 under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey. The facility funds are intended to finance specific projects for refugees, in particular projects in the areas of health, education, infrastructure, food supply and other cost of living. Once this money is fully spent, another three billion euros will flow in by the end of 2018.
  7. The EU and Turkey welcome the ongoing preparations to modernize the customs union .
  8. The accession process will be revived with the opening of Chapter 33 (Financial and Budgetary Provisions) during the Dutch Presidency of the EU Council. The necessary preparatory work for the opening of further chapters should be accelerated.
  9. The EU and Turkey are working together to improve humanitarian conditions in Syria, particularly in certain zones near the Turkish border, so that local people and refugees can live in safer zones.

The regulation on the voluntary admission of asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons is based on the expertise of the UNHCR in relation to the promotion of various forms of international protection in those states that are willing to accept persons from third countries into which they are to be prevented from war and persecution fled their countries of origin. The experience and expertise of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) should also be used. However, according to its own statements, the UNHCR is not a contractual partner in the EU-Turkey Agreement and in particular does not want to participate in the deportations of refugees to Turkey.

Maarten Verwey from the Netherlands has been appointed coordinator for the implementation of the EU-Turkey Agreement . Around 4,000 employees are planned for him, his staff and the work of the Frontex border protection agency in Greece. The cost of the agreement is estimated at 280 to 300 million euros.

Implementation attempts

April 4, 2016 was set as the cut-off date for the start of the deportations of migrants who had reached Greece from Turkey on March 20, 2016, but also as the start date for the resettlement of Syrian civil war refugees from Turkey to EU member states that were willing to accept them been. By May 2016, only five EU countries had agreed to take in Syrian refugees.

According to a press release by the EU Commission , there was a significant reduction in the number of irregular asylum seekers who immigrated to Greece in the three weeks after the agreement came into force. While the arrival of 26,878 people on the islands off the Turkish coast was registered in the three weeks prior to the application of the agreement, the number fell to only 5,874 in the three weeks afterwards. A total of around 8,000 refugees stayed on the Aegean islands in mid-May on; a third of them were Syrians. The EU Commission announced that the average number of irregular border crossings per day has fallen to 47 since May 1, while in the three weeks before the agreement came into force, around 1,740 migrants would have crossed the Aegean to the Greek islands every day.

The EU-Turkey readmission agreement of December 16, 2013 , which came into full force on June 1, 2016 after the conclusion of the EU-Turkey agreement of March 18, 2016 , is at risk because Turkey refuses to accept its anti- Change Terror Laws. A change in accordance with the requirements of the EU is a prerequisite for the introduction of visa-free conditions with Turkey. If this does not come, Turkey does not want to take back refugees from Greece either. Although the readmission agreement between the EU and Turkey has already entered into force, the final “decision on the actual application of the agreement” is still pending. Top officials in the EU and Turkey are now working to find a compromise to save the deal.

On June 27, 2017, the media reported that the EU countries are accepting five times as many migrants from Turkey as agreed, i.e. that the exchange ratio is not 1: 1, but 1: 5.

Resettlement of Syrian civil war refugees

In the EU resettlement regulation of July 20, 2015 , the member states of the EU and the associated Dublin states had already made agreements on the resettlement of vulnerable displaced persons. It was planned to relocate 22,504 people from countries outside the EU, including from camps near the Syrian border, to EU countries. Around 18,000 of these places were still available immediately before the conclusion of the EU-Turkey agreement and, as agreed, are now being used for the resettlement of Syrian refugees from Turkey to the EU; only some of the places are still needed for new settlements from Jordan and Lebanon.

As of June 15, 2016, according to the second report of the EU Commission on the progress made in implementing the EU-Turkey declaration, a total of 511 Syrians were reported as part of the 1: 1 resettlement regulation of the EU-Turkey agreement of 18. Resettled in the EU from Turkey in March 2016 - significantly more people than were repatriated from Greece to Turkey. So far, Turkey has mainly used the 1: 1 resettlement scheme to send sick and traumatized refugees to Europe. Academics, on the other hand, are not allowed to leave the country. According to information from the EU states and the countries associated with the EU on November 7, 2016, a total of 2217 people have been resettled to Europe under the 1: 1 resettlement regulation of the EU-Turkey Agreement since April 4, 2016 , 1825 of them accordingly of the EU resettlement scheme of July 20, 2015 .

In September 2016, the Guardian referred to both the lack of implementation of the relocation within Europe and weaknesses in the implementation of the agreement with Turkey. One of the spiritual fathers of the refugee agreement, Gerald Knaus , pointed out in this context that Greece could become the permanent repository for tens of thousands of asylum seekers.

The EU Commission's proposed amendment of March 21, 2016 provides for a further 54,000 places to be made available for the resettlement of Syrian refugees from Turkey to the EU or other forms of legal admission to the EU. The implementation of the amendment proposal by the EU Commission of March 21, 2016 was decided by the Council of the European Union on September 29, 2016.

As of November 9, 2016, according to the EU Commission's seventh progress report on relocation and resettlement, a total of 11,852 people in 21 countries of the European Union (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom) have been resettled under the EU resettlement scheme of July 20, 2015 ; This includes the people resettled under the 1: 1 resettlement regulation of the EU-Turkey Agreement . Sweden, the United Kingdom and Finland as well as the EU-associated countries Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland have already fully fulfilled their commitments.

Since April 2016, almost 25,000 Syrian refugees have been resettled in the EU as part of the EU-Turkey Agreement.

Deportation of migrants from Greece to Turkey

The basis for the repatriation of irregular migrants to Greece was initially a bilateral repatriation agreement between Greece and Turkey , which had been concluded 15 years earlier, but which was rarely applied. In the run-up to the negotiations on the EU-Turkey agreement of March 18, 2016 , the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met in the Turkish port city of Izmir and renewed the agreement. The Greek-Turkish return agreement was replaced by the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement of December 16, 2013 , which came into full force on June 1, 2016.

The EU Commission reported on the start-up phase of returning migrants from Greece on April 20, 2016: “The return of irregular migrants started on April 4. A total of 325 people who entered illegally after March 20, 2016 and did not apply for asylum were repatriated from Greece to Turkey: 240 Pakistanis, 42 Afghans, 10 Iranians, 7 Indians, 5 Bangladeshis, 5 Iraqis, 5 Congolese, 4 Sri Lankans, 2 Syrians, 1 Somali, 1 Ivorian, 1 Moroccan, 1 Egyptian and 1 Palestinian; the total number of migrants returned under the bilateral readmission agreement between Greece and Turkey amounts to 1,292, with most of the return operations taking place in March. "

Almost all of the Pakistani, Afghans and Algerians deported from the islands of Lesbos and Chios to Turkey in early April 2016 were interned in a deportation center in Kirklareli on the Turkish-Bulgarian border. Journalists, aid organizations or lawyers are not allowed to enter the deportation center. The member of the European Parliament Cornelia Ernst , who visited the internment camp in early May, found "shocking conditions" there.

On May 20, 2016, it was reported that 100 out of 174 Syrians whose asylum applications were examined in the first instance had been allowed to stay in Greece by then. The low rate of rejection of asylum applications from Syrian refugees is, among other things. a. based on the fact that the Greek courts do not see Turkey as a safe third country in which the application of the agreement on the legal status of refugees and the convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms is guaranteed. According to the newspaper Der Spiegel, the EU Commission now assumes that the Greek appellate judge could stop every third deportation in the second instance. With these decisions, the agreement would have failed on an important point, since people who have come to the European Union from Turkey with the help of smugglers can now enforce a right to stay.

On June 1, 2016, provisions of the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement of December 16, 2013 came into force, making it easier to deport third-country nationals who have illegally entered the EU from Turkey. The provisions of the agreement regarding the readmission of nationals of both sides, stateless persons and nationals of third countries with whom Turkey has concluded bilateral readmission agreements, entered into force on October 1, 2014. Full implementation of the readmission agreement is one of the conditions for visa liberalization .

As of June 15, 2016, since the reference date: March 20, 2016, according to a press release by the EU Commission, 462 irregular migrants who have not applied for asylum, including 31 Syrians, are “in accordance with EU and international law and returned to Greece from Turkey with full respect for the principle of non-refoulement ”. The Greek government planned to initially send more than half of the 8,400 migrants interned on the Greek islands back to Turkey. However, as these migrants applied for asylum, the deportation had to be checked on a case-by-case basis. In addition, applicants can object to a rejection of their application. Referring to the planned deportation of around 4,000 migrants in the near future, Migration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas said: "It would be a failure if those who have to leave the islands do not do so within the next one and a half months". On the day before the minister's statements, the Greek parliament exchanged two of the decision-makers on contested asylum and return decisions. So far, a Greek official, a representative of the UN refugee agency UNHCR and a representative of the Greek Human Rights Committee had decided in the second instance on appeals against asylum decisions. The new members of the panel are judges.

According to press reports from September 2016, the key element of the agreement of deporting the Syrians who had illegally entered Greece to Turkey against their will, still did not work. Of the 15,000 people who had crossed from Turkey since the beginning of the agreement, only 580 had been brought back by then. Hints by the Greek government in September that it wanted to transport refugees from the Aegean islands to the mainland due to overcrowding were classified as a false signal by Gerald Knaus , one of the architects of the agreement. Smugglers could now lure those who want to flee by saying that they will ultimately make it to mainland Europe.

The UNHCR counted exactly 1,484 returns from Greece to Turkey from April 2016 to December 31, 2017. After the deportation of 578 people at the beginning of the entry into force, the numbers plummeted. In 2017, the highest number of deportations was reached in April with 150 and the lowest in December with 15 people.

By October 16, 2019, Greece had only returned 1,908 migrants to Turkey - in 2019 only around 100. a. Asylum procedures that take too long.

Accelerated disbursement of funds for refugees in Turkey

In the EU-Turkey Agreement of March 18, 2016, it was agreed to accelerate the disbursement of the initially planned 3 billion euros within the framework of the “ Facility for Refugees in Turkey” (for agreements see point 6). In addition to the EUR 1 billion from the EU budget, the EU member states had committed EUR 2 billion for the period 2016–2017.

In the summer of 2016, the European Commission approved two direct grants totaling EUR 600 million in the areas of education and health and in the award of humanitarian aid projects worth EUR 422 million. Almost half a million Syrian children are to be given access to schooling through the funds invested in education. The funds made available for the health sector are to be used to finance 500 care centers, which will provide around two million people with access to basic medical care and up to one million people with access to rehabilitative psychological treatment. Services are also provided in the areas of family planning, protection against communicable diseases, recruitment and training of medical personnel, and awareness-raising activities.

On September 8, 2016, the EU announced that it would provide EUR 348 million in funding for the European Social Safety Net (ESSN) program under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey Provides. From October 2016, the ESSN is to transfer a fixed amount of money, based on individual needs, to around one million refugees on a personal “money card”, which they can use to pay for food and housing.

By October 4, 2016, EUR 467 million had been disbursed for on-site humanitarian aid and EUR 1252 million were contractually committed for 34 projects. The total amount made available by the refugee facility in mid-October 2016 was over 2.2 billion euros.

In 2019, representatives of Turkey called for European support for refugees in the country to be channeled through their own organizations and no longer through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as they withhold up to 13 percent of EU aid funds for administrative costs. However, the EU Commission wanted to continue to allocate the funds itself. Turkish representatives then demanded that at least only those organizations be entrusted with the distribution of the funds that withheld no more than 4 percent.

Under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey, the EU has provided € 6 billion in funding for basic assistance to those in need. The distribution was to be made in two tranches of EUR 3 billion each. According to a statement by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in January 2020, the first 3 billion euros had to be paid at the end of 2016 and the rest at the end of 2018.  “Now it's 2020 and we still have not received the first 3 billion euros in full . ” Summed up Mevlüt Cavusoglu. It is true that not all of the funds agreed under the “Refugee Facility” have been disbursed. The deadlines named by the Turkish Foreign Minister were not documented in this way.

90 projects are currently running that are financed with EU funds; 30 more projects are scheduled to start in 2020. Access to health care and education for refugees is to be further supported in 2020, as is the development of the infrastructure for waste and water management and the labor market integration and employment of refugees. Many aid projects should continue until 2024/25.

With regard to the accusation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan against the EU that the promised money was flowing too slowly, an EU spokesman made it clear on March 2, 2020 - one day after Turkey breached the agreement - that so far the promised six billion euros, 4.7 billion euros have been contractually awarded and 3.2 billion euros have already been paid out.

Fulfillment of the requirements of the roadmap for visa liberalization

To this end, Turkey has to meet 72 conditions, which have been assigned to five thematic groups: document security; Migration management; public order and security; Fundamental rights and readmission of irregular migrants. The conditions were already laid down in the roadmap agreed with Turkey in 2013 for the introduction of visa exemption with Turkey . Turkey undertakes in this u. a. to:

  • to fully and effectively implement the EU-Turkey readmission agreement of December 16, 2013 , signed by EU Commissioner for Interior Cecilia Malmström and Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler in Ankara in connection with the opening of the visa liberalization dialogue .
  • Manage borders and visa policies in a way that prevents irregular migration,
  • to ensure that people entering the Schengen area have secure travel documents,
  • to set up a migration and asylum system that meets international standards,
  • have functioning structures to combat organized crime, with a focus on migrant smuggling and human trafficking,
  • to set up a suitable form of police and judicial cooperation with the EU member states and the international community and
  • to uphold the fundamental rights of both nationals and foreigners, especially minorities and vulnerable groups.

If Turkey fulfills the conditions set, the EU Commission can submit an amendment to Regulation (EC) No. 539/2001 (EU Visa Regulation) , now Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 (EU Visa Regulation) , to the European Parliament and the Council Regulation) , according to which Turkish citizens would be entitled to travel to the Schengen area without a visa for short stays (i.e. 90 days in a period of 180 days) .

As of May 4, 2016, 67 conditions of the timetable for introducing the visa-free regime with Turkey were met. However, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan still rejects the EU's demand for changes to the anti-terrorism law in Turkey as one of the EU's central demands. At the beginning of November 2016, Turkey threatened the European Union (EU) with the termination of the EU-Turkey Agreement of March 18, 2016 if Turkish citizens were not granted the visa-free visa-free travel in the EU before the end of the year ( see point 5). In an interview given by the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on November 3, 2016, the minister said that Turkey had reacted to the demands from Brussels and had proposed solutions, but could not change its anti-terrorist legislation . Concessions are not possible in this regard. The minister told the newspaper verbatim: “We are sticking to the agreements with the EU and we expect Europe to do the same. If that does not happen, we will suspend the agreements with the EU in this area. "

The benchmarks related to document security have been met by Turkey since the March 2019 report. With the exception of six, Turkey has thus met almost all of the 72 benchmarks to be implemented by the EU to implement the agreed visa liberalization.

Humanitarian aid in Syria

The EU and Turkey are working together "to promote unrestricted and unhindered humanitarian access throughout Syria." In 2016, the EU earmarked a base amount of EUR 140 million for life-saving measures in Syria, almost half of which is already contractually bound .

consequences

After the agreement entered into force, the United Nations Refugee Agency counted in May 2016 that significantly fewer asylum seekers arrived in the Greek East Aegean Islands than before.

The number of irregular asylum seekers still in Greece in mid-March 2016 was given by the Greek government as around 48,000. Since the EU-Turkey Agreement only affected asylum seekers who arrived in Greece after March 20, 2016 and the route via the Balkans to Northern Europe was blocked, it was initially unclear how the EU and particularly Greece would be in the country before this deadline refugees who have arrived would proceed. On April 1, 2016, the Greek Parliament passed a law to implement the EU-Turkey Agreement , thereby voting in favor of the deportation of refugees from Greece to Turkey.

According to a report from June 2016, the Greek opposition bodies undermined the return agreement with Turkey by not following the classification of Turkey as a safe third country by the Greek government and refusing to return Syrian asylum seekers to Turkey in 70 of 72 cases. These appeals bodies were filled with judges, but also with representatives of human rights organizations, but according to the EU, they should be replaced by a regular authority.

The number of refugees who reached Greek territory from Turkey was subject to considerable fluctuations even after the agreement came into force. For example, the number of arrivals doubled to over a thousand people in the second week of September 2016, a multiple of the 50 people per week who arrived shortly after the refugee agreement was concluded. Observers saw a sharp drop in the price of tugboat services, the fact that almost no one is sent back, and the desire to forestall the winter weather as possible reasons.

In the opinion of the EU Commission of February 1, 2017, the controls at certain internal borders in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway should, however, be maintained due to existing deficiencies in border management. With this protective measure, the Commission wanted to preserve the Schengen area as a whole. Although the number of newcomers to Greece has fallen drastically as a result of the EU-Turkey Agreement, there is still considerable migratory pressure at the external borders of the European Union and numerous migrants are still in Greece.

After the EU-Turkey Agreement was concluded, between March 2016 and January 2018, according to the EU Commission, 62,190 asylum seekers who came from Turkey entered Greek islands - in 2017 alone 35,000. From there, 27,635 people were transported to mainland Greece. 1,600 people were repatriated to Turkey. The Joint Analysis and Strategy Center for Illegal Migration assessed the low number of returns to Turkey and transfers to mainland Greece as an incentive for refugees from Turkey to migrate to Greece.

When a further three billion euros were to be paid to Turkey in spring 2018, which the German Chancellor had promised when negotiating the agreement, apparently without prior consultation with Turkey's EU partners, protests against the idea arose in EU bodies Germany and others to take this money from the common EU budget.

From April 2016 to March 2020, the European Union accepted 26,835 migrants from refugee camps in Turkey based on the agreement, according to press research. With almost 10,000 people, most of them were brought to Germany.

rating

According to a Frontex report from summer 2016, the decline in the number of refugees in spring 2016 was mainly due to this closure of the Balkan route and less to the agreement with Turkey. At the beginning of 2017, Frontex concluded that the decline in the number of refugees in Greece was now mainly due to the refugee agreement with Turkey and that the closure of the Balkan route had also contributed to this.

Critics lament the dependency that the European Union and Germany, as one of the preferred destination countries for migrants, became with the conclusion of the agreement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . After the attempted coup in Turkey on July 16, 2016, its rule had increasingly taken on autocratic traits , while the EU held back with countermeasures.

Among other things, the controversial behavior of the German Chancellor in the Böhmermann affair at the beginning of April 2016 or the behavior of the German government when the journalist Deniz Yücel was arrested in February 2017 was seen as an expression of Germany's undue reluctance towards the Turkish President.

The highest Greek administrative court, the State Council , ruled in April 2018, based on a complaint by the Greek Refugee Council, that there are no serious reasons for interning refugees in miserable and overcrowded camps on the islands. Newly arriving people are no longer allowed to be detained on the islands and can travel on to mainland Greece. The 15,000 people already interned on the islands were initially excluded from the decision.

Breach of agreement

On February 28, 2020, the Turkish government reopened its border for migrants to Bulgaria and Greece following the escalation of the Syrian civil war in February 2020 . As the Turkish media reported on the same day, officials said that the police and coast guard would no longer prevent refugees from entering Europe for the time being. The burden from the refugees is too great for one country to bear it alone. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the embattled Idlib region from the Russian and Syrian attacks in the direction of Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had already pointed out several times that his country could not shoulder a new influx of refugees on its own and warned that all European countries would feel the negative consequences. More than 800,000 people have been displaced from the Idlib region since December 2018 and have been on the run since then, 80% of them women and children.

On Saturday, March 1st, 2020, the Turkish President personally confirmed: “We have opened the gates. [...] We will not close the gates in the future either. We don't have to feed so many refugees. ”Erdoğan has thus effectively canceled the refugee pact agreed with the EU in 2016. Erdoğan gave the reason: "Europe does not support Turkey in Syria, and also not really with the care of the almost four million Syrians in his country."

First reactions to the breach of the agreement

As a first reaction to the breach of the agreement, EU Migration Commissioner Margaritis Schinas said in Berlin on March 2, 2020: “Nobody can blackmail or intimidate the European Union.” But this crisis offers the EU the opportunity “to defend the external borders together, solidarity to show with Greece and Bulgaria ”while continuing a comprehensive reform of migration law . In order to coordinate the EU's support to Greece, he had asked the interior and justice ministers of the European Union to an extraordinary meeting and "asked for 'considerable reinforcement' by Frontex in the border region."

In the meantime, according to the Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas, Turkey brought people to the border in a targeted and controlled manner who had gathered at the border and tried to reach Greek soil by force. In response, the government increased the coast guard off the East Aegean Islands as well as the military and police presence along the border river Evros and suspended the right of asylum for a month. Asylum applications are no longer accepted. If people manage to cross the border anyway, they should be sentenced to prison terms for illegally crossing the border or be deported immediately. Various human rights groups and the UNHCR pointed out that Greece continues to be obliged to grant every asylum seeker access to an orderly asylum procedure. According to the UNHCR, neither international law nor that of the EU allow the possibility of suspending refugees' requests for asylum.

The effects of Erdoğan's announcements initially remained unclear. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on February 29 that there was "zero migration" on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey . According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), around 13,000 people had reached the 212-kilometer border between Greece and Turkey on March 1, 2020 and gathered at border crossings in groups of up to 3,000 people - including families with young children. The Greek government immediately assured that there would be no border crossings from Turkey to Greece.

While the Turkish side spoke of "over 130,000" border crossings to Greece on March 3, the Greek government reported several thousand border crossings prevented. In any case, the situation on the Turkish-Greek border escalated. Thousands waited in front of the border crossing on the Evros River, which was closed by the Greek side, or arrived on the East Aegean Islands by boat .

Situation in the refugee camps on the Greek islands

In the refugee camps on the Aegean islands of Lesbos , Chios , Samos , Leros and Kos , which are only designed for 6,000 people, there are currently around 40,000 people waiting for their onward journey. At the beginning of October 2019, according to Clara Anna Bünger - the lawyer advises refugees in the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos - the conditions there had long been unsustainable; there would be too little space, bad food and only two doctors for 13,000 people. It has been like this for over three and a half years - since refugees were not allowed to leave the islands. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wants to avoid refugees coming to the mainland and replace the camps with closed registration and reception centers . Since the opening of the Turkish border, right-wing thugs and self-appointed vigilante groups have been hunting refugees, journalists and aid workers on the islands themselves . Apostolos Veizis from the aid organization Doctors Without Borders complains that the mood against aid organizations is hostile. The organization runs a children's clinic right next to the Moria camp, which recently had to be closed for two days for safety reasons. The clinic's doctors are held at roadblocks by vigilante groups on the way to Moria, verbally abused and asked to leave. There are currently around 7,000 children living in the camp who cannot go to school, who have no bed to sleep in and, according to Apostolos Veizis , cannot get anything decent to eat. The medical care and living conditions in the camp designed for 2,840 people - almost 20,000 people now live there - are catastrophic. In winter, the cold, snow and moisture penetrate the tents of the camps, which have grown into wildly sprawling tent cities. According to "Doctors Without Borders", adults and children regularly try to kill themselves. As there is a lack of processors, the asylum procedures take several weeks or years. In addition, contrary to the terms of the agreement, Greek courts are preventing certain migrants from being returned to Turkey. Turkey has also not been able to sufficiently prevent the transfer of migrants to the Aegean islands of Greece since March 2016, although this was agreed with the EU under point 3 of the EU-Turkey Agreement ; In 2019, around 60,000 boat refugees reached the islands. The former holiday paradises in Europe are increasingly turning into prison islands .

Measures to improve the situation in the refugee camps on the Greek islands

In view of the conditions in the refugee camps on the East Aegean Islands , the Greek government plans to bring more than 10,000 migrants to the mainland in the coming weeks. Migrants were also offered the option of voluntarily returning to their home countries. According to an EU-funded repatriation program, those willing to return are to receive 2000 euros so that they can go back to their countries of origin. According to the EU Commissioner for Migration Ylva Johansson , the offer with a term of one month is only valid for max. 5000 asylum seekers and only for those who arrived on the Greek islands before January 1, 2020.

On March 8, 2020, the leaders of the German governing parties agreed on a compromise; only children and young people from the overcrowded refugee camps on the Greek islands should be admitted. In the resolution of the coalition committee it was said that Germany was ready to take on “an appropriate share” within the framework of a “coalition of the willing” at European level. Initially, it was planned to accept around 1,000 to 1,500 children who either urgently need treatment because of a serious illness or who are unaccompanied and younger than 14 years old. Most of them are girls. However, during their meeting on March 13, 2020, the EU Interior Ministers were unable to reach a Europe-wide agreement on the admission of such needy children. Only France, Ireland, Finland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Germany and Croatia agreed to accept a total of 1,600 unaccompanied minor migrants as well as sick children and their parents from the Greek islands and only if they arrived there before January 1st. This decision is intended to prevent further migrants from being encouraged to flee Turkey as a transit country towards Europe (“ pull factor ”).

Behavior of Greece after the opening of the border by Turkey

According to the Greek government, almost 43,400 people were prevented by Greek security forces from illegally crossing the Turkish-Greek border between February 29 and March 10, 2020. 346 migrants who had succeeded in this were arrested. New York Times reporters documented how Greek authorities collected migrants who had been arrested in a special facility near Feres . The telephones were collected, the request to apply for asylum was not responded to and migrants were brought back to Turkey from the facility by speedboat over the Evros. A man identified by the media as the Syrian factory worker Mohammed Yaarub from Aleppo was shot dead on March 2 on the west bank of the Evros river, according to press research.

Reactions in other European countries to the triggered humanitarian crisis

The EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen visited the Greek-Turkish border on March 3, 2020 and announced that the EU is providing Greece with up to 700 million euros to cope with the tense situation at its external borders. 350 million euros are immediately available. A further 350 million euros could be requested. The money should be used for migration management and the construction and operation of the necessary infrastructure . The European border protection agency Frontex is to be strengthened in Greece with 100 new border guards, boats and helicopters.

On March 4, 2020, the German Bundestag voted on the application by the Bundestag parliamentary group Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen to accept 5,000 unaccompanied children, pregnant women, women traveling alone or severely traumatized people from the Greek refugee camps. In 2016, Germany had already promised to accept 27,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece under the EU-Turkey Agreement, but only accepted around 10,000. In the roll-call vote, only 117 MPs supported the motion, 495 MPs voted against. The deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group, Eva Högl , took the position that the aid measure demanded by the Greens would not help in the current situation. Instead, a European solution is necessary.

On March 5, Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz warned against admitting refugees and migrants who are currently at the Greek-Turkish border: “If these people, some of whom are also violent, finally get through to Central Europe, it will not happen the 13,000 remain. Then there will soon be hundreds of thousands and later maybe millions. In the end, we would have the same conditions as in 2015. […] The people who are now arriving at this border are for the most part not refugees who are fleeing the Syrian war zone. Most of them are migrants who have been living in Turkey for years. These people have no right to asylum in Greece because they are not persecuted in Turkey. ” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used these people and instrumentalized them to put pressure on the EU.

On March 9, representatives of the two large German churches took a position on the situation on the Greek-Turkish border. The chairman of the Freising Bishops' Conference , Archbishop Cardinal Reinhard Marx , made it clear: "It is not about uncontrolled opening of the border, but about not losing sight of the concrete need." The Turkish president is playing a cynical game by luring people to the borders . Nevertheless, Turkey took in 3.7 million people. The fact that Christian Europe refuses to take in 5,000 children is incomprehensible. The chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany , Heinrich Bedford-Strohm , also sharply criticized the way people were treated at this external EU border: “Instead of finding humanitarian solutions in which all countries of Europe take responsibility, men, women and children are kept who seek protection with tear gas from their bodies. ” It is pathetic what is currently going on at the border.

Assessment and context

To de-escalate the clashes over Idlib in February 2020 , in which more than 30 Turkish soldiers were killed, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not only relying on compromises with Vladimir Putin . He also wants the support of the European Union in establishing a no-fly zone and in helping hundreds of thousands of refugees who are staying on the Syrian side on the border with Turkey in inhumane conditions. The ARD corporation in Istanbul, Karin Senz, assumes that the Turkish president has therefore followed through on his threat to open the border with the EU to refugees. The spokesman and advisor to the Turkish President denies that:

“We do not intend to create an artificial crisis and exert political pressure. For us, the refugees have never been the subject of political blackmail. Turkey has tried to stop the flow of refugees into the European Union. But Turkey's capacities are now exhausted. The faster the EU and all those affected act, the faster this crisis can be resolved "

- İbrahim Kalın

In the meantime, Germany and the EU have reacted and pledged several million euros for the people in northern Syria. However, the EU does not want to intervene militarily. Erdogan and Putin continue to determine the course of events.

Border closure by Turkey

On March 19, 2020, Turkey closed the borders with the EU again; the COVID-19 pandemic was given as the official reason . Two days earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to increase EU funds for refugee care in Turkey at a video conference attended by French President Emmanuel Macron , British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan .

Web links

Commons : Refugee Crisis in Europe  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

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