Brussels, 16/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - At the end of the conference of presidents of the European Parliament on Tuesday 15 March, the leaders of the main political groups - the EPP, S&D and ALDE - laid down their conditions for an agreement that is currently being prepared with Turkey on migrants to be acceptable.
They thus require: - the selection of refugees eligible for resettlement in the EU to be undertaken by the European Union in cooperation with the UNHCR; - the EU to launch temporary measures immediately for European border guards and a coastguard agency without prejudice to the legislative process; - Turkey's full respect of EU requirements for visa liberalisation; - a start to be made with the additional EU accession negotiation chapters on the judiciary and fundamental rights, and on justice, freedom and security; - “an additional budget allocation for refugees in Turkey under the condition of confirming that such an allocation would go to refugees in the camps”.
This position of the three political group presidents should have taken the form of a common position by several groups, but this was not possible, an ALDE source told EUROPE. The three political group presidents therefore had to be content with setting out their red lines and not opposing the draft agreement, as the ALDE Group initially wanted, according to this source. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)