The meeting of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council apparently did not go off according to his expectations. When the meeting concluded late on Monday, Erdogan left without any press conference or any statements to his own reporters. Officials from his office described the talks as “productive.”
Top on the agenda was a renegotiation of the EU-Turkey deal of 2016 as well as the withdrawal of the thousands of migrants and refugees from the Turkish-Greek border.
Erdogan put his conditions on the table but did not give assurances about the migrants at the border. Allegedly, the EU also did not make a commitment about financial aid.
Following the meeting, EUCO president Charles Michel bypassed a relevant question on whether the EU received assurances that the Turkish government will stop sending migrants to the Greek border, saying “What’s in the statement, and what’s in the camp of Turkey has to be fulfilled.”
Michel added that “it was a good start point” and that the two sides decided to task EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell with the Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to work out details of the new deal.
Today's meeting with @RTErdogan is an important step in the right direction.
Both Turkey and the EU need to work on the full implementation of the #EUTurkey statement on migration to de-escalate the situation. pic.twitter.com/jdkCXHwzQC— Charles Michel (@eucopresident) March 9, 2020
EC President Ursula von der Leyen promised to “restart the dialogue” with Turkey.
Today's open and constructive dialogue with President @RTErdogan was a good starting point of a process that first of all has the aim: support for migrants and stability for the region. pic.twitter.com/cZOYdAX2E9
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) March 9, 2020
Important decisions on the issue are expected to be taken at the EU Summit on March 23, provided Borell and Cavusoglu have come down to a compromise.
According to Greek state broadcaster ERT TV, Erdogan is to make statements about his EU meeting at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The EU-Turkey Statement is not legally binding, Erdogan believes that two out of three commitments have been broken by the EU anyway, and the stupid repetition of mindless comments like “the EU-Turkey Statement must be upheld” reminds me of the endless repetitions of lies and nonsense from Theresa May.
The EU has no refugee policy. This is the fact. They expect Turkey to stop all refugees arriving and do it for next to nothing, and for the refugees to shut up and just accept that their lives will be Hell. And the Turks should just do as they are told, as well.
Is anybody stupid enough to think that Erdogan will tolerate being abused? This situation is very bad for Greece and the refugees; and it is primarily the fault of the rest of the EU — Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary in particular.