The Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, did not manage, on Monday 9 March in Brussels, to renew the terms of their cooperation with the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on the fight against illegal immigration, but have launched a process of dialogue and are going to identify everything that is working and what is "missing" in this 2016 agreement, the two leaders said.
Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, will thus be responsible for leading a working group to assess the needs and shortcomings of the EU/Turkey Declaration with his Turkish counterparts.
It will be a question, as Charles Michel said, of ensuring "that we are on the same page" and that the interpretation of the 2016 Declaration is the same on both sides.
Among the known malfunctions: - €6 billion in support of Syrian refugees on Turkish soil not yet fully disbursed (only €3.7 billion has been concretely spent so far); - the ‘frozen’ file on visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens, which was also part of the 2016 agreement.
Today's "open and constructive discussion is a good starting point for a process whose primary objective is support for migrants and stability in the region", the President of the Commission commented at a press conference. She considered it positive that "the line of communication with Ankara remains open".
"Clearly, we have our disagreements, but we talked about them openly; it was constructive", she added.
At her side, the President of the European Council welcomed "the opportunity to exchange our different points of view". "In particular, there was an opportunity to show how the EU has implemented financial commitments, with the promise to mobilise a total of 6 billion euros to support refugees in Turkey. And it is also an opportunity to acknowledge the responsibility that Turkey has taken for the care of migrants on Turkish soil", said Charles Michel.
"We have also had the opportunity to explain the difference for the European Union between the means that are paid and disbursed, because the procedures are completed and the projects carried out, and the means that are committed, i.e. reserved in the case of the 6 billion euro envelope that has been mobilised in connection with this agreement", he added.
Agreement expected by Ankara before 26 March
Not specifying whether the Turkish President had assured them that he would prevent migrants and refugees from going to Greece, the President of the European Council just recalled that the two leaders had insisted to Mr Erdogan on the need to implement the 2016 Pact.
For her part, the President of the Commission confirmed that all the elements of the 2016 Declaration had been put forward, including the frozen file of visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens. Promised in 2016, it had not seen the light of day because of Turkish anti-terrorist legislation deemed not to be in line with European criteria. Ankara had therefore been unable, according to the EU, to tick the 72 boxes necessary so that a liberalisation recommendation could be proposed to the EU Council.
For his part, on 10 March, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, considered that the March 2016 Declaration should be "updated" and that visa liberalisation and the modernisation of the EU-Turkey customs union should be implemented. He said he expects an agreement with the EU by March 26, the date of a European summit, according to AFP.
When asked about the dates of a new meeting or the start of the work entrusted to Josep Borrell, the Commission did not provide any details, since no date had been set as of 10 March. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)