United Nations attacks EU-Turkey deal

The United Nations has voiced grave concerns about plans for “blanket returns” of refugees to Turkey.

Istanbul/ Brussels - The United Nations has voiced grave concerns about plans for “blanket returns” of refugees to Turkey as part of a radical deal aimed at saving the European Union's commitment to open borders.

In the early hours of on Tuesday, Donald Tusk, head of the European Council, emerged after 12 hours of talks with EU leaders in Brussels to announce a “breakthrough” in tackling Europe's refugee crisis.

“The days of irregular migration to Europe are over,” he said.

That boldness appeared premature, as Hungary threatened a veto while the UN and human rights groups warned that the proposed deal with Turkey could be both illegal and immoral.

The deal with Turkey, spearheaded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the EU summit in Brussels, aims to restore order by halting chaotic illegal migration in exchange for a system of quotas to relocate people to Europe in an orderly fashion.

Alarmed that the numbers of arriving migrants have shown no sign of falling, countries along the route into western Europe last month began closing their borders, triggering a backlog in Greece. Slovenia said on Tuesday night it would no longer allow migrants to transit through the country, bar “humanitarian” exceptions.

The deal quickly ran into controversy over a plan to forcibly return those arriving in Greece on rubber dinghies, sending them straight back to Turkey.

For every Syrian returned to Turkey, Europe would resettle one Syrian already living in Turkey.

Those who attempted the illegal crossing would be sent to the “back of the queue”.

The pushback against the proposal was led by the UN, which warned that it could violate international and European law to return vulnerable people to Turkey, where some nationalities lacked legal protection.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said: “I am deeply concerned about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under international law.”

Amnesty International said that the mass return of people would be a “death blow to the right to seek asylum” and described the proposals as “alarmingly short-sighted and inhumane”.

The group pointed out that the arrangement “would make every resettlement place offered to a Syrian in the EU contingent upon another Syrian risking their life by embarking on the deadly sea route to Greece”.

Others said the arrangement incentivised Ankara to allow smugglers to continue to operate.

Further questions remain about how authorities might force people who had paid hundreds of dollars and taken huge risks to return if they resisted deportation, and about the eligibility criteria for relocation to Europe.

Elizabeth Collett, director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, said the smugglers would find other routes into the heart of Europe.

“We are talking about a multi-billion-dollar smuggling business that is capable of adapting to different circumstances,” she said.

EU leaders were bounced into the deal after being blindsided by brinkmanship from Turkey. Having expected to rubber-stamp an agreement crowned by €3bn in aid for refugees, Mr Davutoglu arrived in Brussels demanding twice that sum.

He also insisted on a speedier timetable for giving Turkish nationals visa-free travel into the EU's passport-free Schengen zone, and the resuscitation of Turkey's dormant EU membership bid.

The deal first emerged at a dinner on Sunday night at the Turkish embassy in Brussels with Mr Davutoglu, Ms Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The scheme undermined Mr Tusk, who last week laid the groundwork for a different deal under which Turkey would have agreed to take back refugees intercepted in the Aegean. It prompted frustration that Mr Tusk's careful diplomacy over the previous weeks appeared to have been undone by Ms Merkel in just one night.

Turkey, meanwhile, was accused of exploiting Europe's desperation to extract maximum gain.

Mr Davutolgu insisted that Turkey, which is already home to 2.5 million refugees, was simply seeking burden-sharing.

The EU now has just over a week to hammer out the final details before yet another summit at the end of next week, when Turkey is expected to formally confirm the deal.

The agreement was forged against a backdrop of deteriorating freedom of expression in Turkey. Last week, the state took control of a newspaper linked to an arch-foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

Even as leaders thrashed out the details on Monday night, the crackdown was widened with the seizure of Cihan News Agency, which is owned by the same company as Zaman newspaper.

The clampdown prompted widespread criticism. The former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon told The Independent that Europe's policy toward Turkey's hopes of EU accession was “crazy”.

He said: “The irony is that when Turkey was actually reforming, we refused to let it in and now it's going in the opposite direction.”

While Mr Tusk said that Europe “cannot stay indifferent” to concerns about press freedom, he and EU leaders were unwilling to allow the deal to be derailed amid growing domestic pressure to tackle a crisis that has strained EU cohesion to the limits.

Mr Erdogan is determined to bring in a new constitution that would grant him executive powers.

To do so, he will either have to win the support of 14 opposition MPs to put the proposal to a referendum or call a fresh election in the hope of securing the right numbers.

Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey expert at St Lawrence University in New York State, said that being seen to have forced Europe to play on Ankara's terms would be a political boost for the President. The deal would be depicted, he said, as “Turkey standing up to Europe and forcing Europe to come to terms with it even on an equal level”.

Women’s Day Erdogan’s view

Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan used a speech on International Women's Day to declare that “a woman is above all else a mother”. The President also criticised contraception, saying that it was used to “dry up our nation”.

Mr Erdogan has repeatedly called on Turkish women to have at least three children. He has described abortion as “murder” and condemned birth by Caesarean section as “unnatural”.

Q&A Can Turkey be trusted with refugees?

The €3bn refugee exchange programme being hammered out between the European Union and Turkey would mean that Syrian refugees who land on the Greek islands would be returned to Turkey, while European countries would take asylum seekers currently living in Turkish refugee camps.

Q Is it legal to send people who land in Greece back to Turkey?

A The United Nations 1951 Convention on Refugees bans expulsions except on grounds of public order. International asylum rules say all applications have to be properly reviewed, and asylum seekers cannot be returned to a country that does not offer proper protection. “The parties failed to say how individual needs for international protection would be fairly assessed during the rapid-fire mass expulsions they agreed would take place,” says Bill Frelick from Human Rights Watch.

The plan could also fall foul of EU rules - Article 19 of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights bans collective expulsions.

Q Can Turkey really be considered a “safe country” to return refugees?

A While Turkey has ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is the only country in the world to apply geographical limitations, so only Europeans are currently guaranteed refugee status there.

While Syrians have the right to international protection in Turkey, this right does not cover other refugees like Afghans and Iraqis fleeing war.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, says it is concerned that it would leave Syrian refugees unprotected and at risk of being sent back to a war zone.

Questioned about this yesterday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker insisted the plan was legal: Greece had determined that Turkey was a safe country, so the returns policy was legal. But human rights groups say such returns are almost certainly illegal.

Amnesty International says it is “absurd” to describe Turkey as safe.

“Turkey has forcibly returned refugees to Syria and many refugees in the country live in desperate conditions without adequate housing,” said Iverna McGowan, head of the group's EU office.

“By no stretch of imagination can Turkey be considered a 'safe third country' that the EU can cosily outsource its obligations to.”

Q How will the EU resettle Syrian refugees from Turkey?

A The plan says the EU will take in as many Syrian refugees from Turkish camps as it sends back, but it is unclear how they will be taken in by European countries. Angela Merkel said that those returned from Greece would go to the back of the queue, but it remains uncertain how those who are to be relocated will be chosen out of a pool of at least 2.5 million Syrians in Turkey.

Hungary's hardline anti-migration Prime Minister Viktor Orban has promised to veto the scheme, but officials have said it is likely to be a voluntary “coalition of the willing” including Germany and the Netherlands.

Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope warned that it risked being “an undeliverable plan at great cost”, like last year's scheme to relocate 160 000 refugees, which has so far found new homes for just 660.

“Last year's silver bullet was a relocation system that did not work,” he said.

“This year's seems to be an all-encompassing deal with Turkey that relies on their goodwill, despite little evidence that they have delivered on promises already made.”

The Independent