Brussels, 07/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 7 January, European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said that the European Commission was far from pleased at Turkey's efforts thus far to reduce migration flows to the EU. He was speaking during a visit to the Netherlands with the college of commissioners.
During a press conference with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Timmermans said it was true that the figures had remained relatively high in recent weeks, but he nevertheless believed that Turkey was implementing the EU-Turkey action plan on migration (see EUROPE 11449). He said he thought the EU's cooperation with Turkey was positive and added that the EU would continue to talk to the Turkish authorities about how to improve the effectiveness of their operations. Timmermans said the Commission had seen the initial results, which were encouraging, but that it was far from being pleased. He plans to visit Turkey on 10-11 January in order to talk to the Turkish authorities on the ground. According to data from the Frontex agency reported in the Wall Street Journal, 90,000 people reportedly arrived in Greece from Turkey over the course of December, compared with just over 100,000 in November.
The action plan was presented by the European Commission in October 2015 and ratified by the heads of state and government on 29 November at the last EU-Turkey summit (see EUROPE 11441). The 28 EU member states had agreed at this summit to give €3 billion to Turkey for it to regulate the flows of migrants. The technical modalities for this financing have still not been approved, however.
In Timmermans's view, there are other issues on which Europeans should focus besides cooperation with Turkey - issues such as strengthening the EU's external borders and applying the right of asylum. He also underlined the need to detect people able to claim international protection as soon as possible, and to detect those who must be returned to their country of origin.
During the evening of Wednesday 6 January, it was Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière who criticised the Turkish authorities, saying that their efforts to reduce the migrant flows continued to be limited. He said at a press conference that they had seen the initial efforts to reduce illegal immigration from Turkey, but that they still had to identify a sustainable, lasting and visible reduction as a concrete result of December's measures. In de Maizière's opinion, the slight reduction in flows was mainly linked to recent rough seas and storms. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)