The European Union has struck a deal with Turkey on Friday afternoon. Even though, the full agreement has not made public yet, what is clear is that: all irregular migrants arriving on Greek islands as of Sunday midnight will be being sent back to Turkey.
EU-Turkey draft finally has March 20 start date slotted in (via @Cedsimon ) pic.twitter.com/kJ5eqGFFUd
— Danny Kemp (@dannyctkemp) March 18, 2016
What did Turkey get in return? According to information coming from Brussels:
- 3 more billion euro
- opening of only one Turkey-EU accession chapter (Number 33)
The visa-free traveling for Turks is not clear yet.
Before I start complaining about the thousands of questions about How these migrants will be sent back to Turkey, the issue of Syrian refugees, the fate of Syrian and other refugees and migrants currently trapped in Greece, the deal screening and other open issues… we should better await for the official EUCO statement.
This is all political bullshit. All it will do is oblige the refugees to apply for asylum in Greece — landing the problem on Greece and the Greek people. A few thousands — mainly pakistanis — can be returned to Turkey. The others will have strong legal rights under UN, ECHR and European law.
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Of course, Europe will not take any of the refugees from Greece — we have already seen that — so they will remain in Greece. Maybe 500,000 this coming year.
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The other option, doubtless that Germany would like, is for Greece to abuse the rights of refugees and deny them protection. Then they can be sent back to Turkey in hellish conditions. All of the EU will be able to deny any responsibility, claiming that it is the terrible Greeks who refused to obey international humanitarian law.
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Tsipras really does seem to be some sort of a dupe. Let’s hope that Cyprus, Spain and Italy veto the agreement, as they promised yesterday.
Well said –
Portugal is ready for hosting 10.500 in houses but the EU, Italy and Greece are too lame to get the papers ready
Are all the migrants actually coming into Greece via Turkey –
WHY WOULD THEY GO TO A HOSTILE COUNTRY LIKE TURKEY IF THEY COULD HELP IT ?
What is they are coming straight from Syria or Cyprus – in fact they could be entering Greece from Albania.
The refugees are oming in from all around the coast like of Europe – God only knows how many people there are –
And certainly not the authorities.
It has become worse that a crisis and yet Jean-Claude Junckerbond & his EU collagues are pretending that the situaion is managable.
PRETENDING because here is no was they do not know the full extent of the incoming migration.
Its all in all a horrible idear. First it wont be a solution to anything or anyone. And especially not for the greek population. Secondly – you are right, “refugees” wil only be trapped in Greece.
But then again – you must aske yourself – what the H*** can Europe do at the moment – and why havent Greece acted by will before.I realise that the situationin Greece is dire, but lack of will to cope with the problem have only expanded the problem. Spain and Italy have been capable of stopping a lot of the traffik – and dont moarn about cost lines – Italy and Spain have that in abundance to…