Brussels, 17/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 17 December, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was optimistic about the chances of seeing the reintegration programme for Syrian refugees in Turkey succeed.
She was speaking at the end of a meeting between around ten EU member states and Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, which was organised at the Austrian Embassy in Brussels a few hours before the start of the European Council.
It was a “good meeting”, Merkel said, because it enabled a working process to be launched for developing the reintegration programme with Turkey. Sweden, Greece, France, the Benelux countries (the Netherlands will hold the rotating presidency of the EU Council of Ministers from 1 January) and the European Commission were at the meeting with Germany.
The meeting did not produce any official results. The number of Syrian refugees that could be affected by this programme therefore remains unknown. According to a European diplomat, the programme would target the refugees who arrived in Turkey before 29 November 2015 (the date on which the EU-Turkey summit was held) so as to set a limit and avoid an influx of new refugees wanting to come to the EU.
For Merkel, the objective of this restricted-format meeting was to talk to Turkey about actions it could take to reduce the flows of illegal migrants to the EU. Indeed it is upon these actions that part of the reintegration programme is conditional. Merkel said she expected a “strong and clear” reduction in migrant flows. She also repeated her desire to see legal migration being set up for the refugees who are currently in Turkey, so as to diminish the risks that these refugees continue to take on dangerous routes in order to reach the EU.
According to a European source, the migrant flows arriving in the EU from Turkey are reportedly of the same volume two weeks after the 29 November EU-Turkey summit as two weeks before. The source nevertheless thought it was “still too early” to judge Turkey's efforts.
Merkel affirmed that Turkey's progress on the migration action plan - for which the EU has committed to giving €3 billion to Ankara to improve the living conditions of the Syrian refugees - would be the subject of a report at the European Council in February.
At the start of the European Council this Thursday, Merkel was expected to report back to European Council President Donald Tusk on this meeting with Turkey. Tusk did not reportedly look badly on this initiative of a small group of member states, deeming it to take place within the framework of the conclusions of the 29 November EU-Turkey summit, which had agreed to the principle of a reintegration programme, this European source stated.
When asked about this issue, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker also said that he did not believe the initiative was a sign of division within the EU. Instead it should be seen as showing the “good will” of Europeans. He said that the programme had been discussed on a voluntary basis from the start. Meetings of the 28 EU member state sherpas are nevertheless being held to deal with this file, he said. The Dutch Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers reportedly intends to broaden this discussion to involve all member states, the news agency Reuters reports. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)