During his presentation of a progress report on the application of the agreement on stemming migration flows from Turkey to the European Union (see EUROPE 11515), on Wednesday 28 September, European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avrampoulos explained that the EU-Turkey declaration of March this year, continued to function, despite the attempted coup in Turkey.
At the beginning of September, the commissioner met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and described the situation on the ground for Syrian refugees as "exactly the same" as before 15 July when the attempted coup took place. He also pointed out that migrant flows to the EU had declined, which was a priority objective for the Europeans at the end of 2015.
In a press release, the Commission states: "The considerable and continued fall in the number of people crossing the Aegean Sea in an illegal manner, as well as those losing their lives there, proves that the EU-Turkey Declaration has so far proved efficient. The arrival of 85 people on average a day since June, as opposed to more than 1,700 arriving on a daily basis the month preceding the implementation of the declaration and the 7,000 arriving every day in October 2015, clearly shows that it is possible to break the traffickers' economic model".
Around 578 illegal migrants have been sent back from Greece to Turkey since April 2016, including 22 Syrians. All of these were distributed voluntarily. The returns to Turkey were interrupted with the attempted coup, however, but resumed again at the beginning of September – although at a pace the Commission still believes is too slow. The report particularly highlights the sluggishness of the Greek administration in processing asylum requests. Some of the 578 people mentioned above were refused protection because they were not eligible for it, whilst others withdrew their requests.
€2.2 billion already released. The EU-Turkey Agreement includes an envelope of €3 billion for the 2016-17 period, in an effort to respond to the most urgent needs of the refugees and host communities in Turkey. A total of €2.239 billion has already been allocated, and the money made available for contracts increased to a figure of €1.252 billion.
Visa liberalisation report in December. One extremely sensitive part of the agreement involves the EU and Turkey's ongoing attempts to finalise the visa liberalisation system the Europeans had promised Ankara. There are still 7 criteria which need to be met out of a total of 72, including the alignment of Turkish anti-terrorist legislation with European standards. The Commission will produce another report in December.
Meanwhile, the Council and European Parliament still have to give their agreement to a visa waiver suspension mechanism, which is supposed to provide reassurance to member states in the event of difficulties occurring with one or other of the third countries that have benefited from the liberalisation in question (see EUROPE 11633). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)