German plan stalls on EU-wide deal

Ian Traynor in Brussels

Months of European efforts to come up with common policies on mass immigration unravelled on Sunday when Germany led a “coalition of the willing” of nine EU countries taking in most refugees from the Middle East, splitting the union formally on the issues of mandatory refugee-sharing and funding.

An unprecedented full EU summit with Turkey agreed a fragile pact aimed at stemming the flow of migrants to Europe via Turkey. But the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, frustrated by the resistance in Europe to her policies, also convened a separate mini-summit with seven other leaders to push a fast-track deal with the Turks and to press ahead with a new policy of taking in and sharing hundreds of thousands of refugees a year directly from Turkey.

The surprise mini-summit suggested that Merkel has given up on trying to persuade her opponents, mostly in eastern Europe, to join a mandatory refugee-sharing scheme across the EU, although she is also expected to use the pro-quotas coalition to pressure the naysayers into joining later.

Merkel’s ally on the new policy, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European commission, said of the mini-summit: “This is a meeting of those states which are prepared to take in large numbers of refugees from Turkey legally.”

But he added later that any such agreement would be voluntary and not binding, while the Dutch rejected German-led calls to resettle large numbers directly from Turkey.

The frictions triggered by the split were instantly apparent. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council who chaired the full summit with Turkey, contradicted the mainly west European emphasis on seeing Ankara as the best hope of slowing the mass migration to Europe.

“Let us not be naïve. Turkey is not the only key to solving the migration crisis. The most important one is our responsibility and duty to protect our external borders. We cannot outsource this obligation to any third country. I will repeat this again: without control on our external borders, Schengen will become history.”

He was referring to the 26-country free-travel zone in Europe which is also in danger of unravelling under the strains of the migratory pressures and jihadist terrorism.

Merkel’s mini-summit brought together the leaders of Germany, Austria, and Sweden – the countries taking the most refugees – Finland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Greece. French president, Francois Hollande, did not attend the mini-summit because of scheduling problems, but it is understood that France is part of the pro-quotas vanguard. The nine countries include the EU’s wealthiest.

The EU-Turkey summit agreed to pay Turkey €3bn in return for a deal that would see Ankara patrolling the Aegean borders with Greece – the main point of entry to the EU for hundreds of thousands this year. Ankara is also to resume its long-stalled EU membership negotiations by the end of the year and, according to the schedule agreed, is to have visas waived by next year for Turks travelling to the EU.

In response, the EU will be able to start deporting “illegal migrants” to Turkey by next summer under a fast-tracked “readmissions agreement.”

The hope in Berlin and Brussels is that the pact will bring a large measure of relief for EU governments. This may prove illusory. The vast majority of migrants arriving from Turkey are from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, few of whom qualify as “illegal migrants”, are eligible for asylum in Europe and cannot be deported. The agreement appears more political than practical and scepticism is extremely high among policy-makers that the Turkey pact will work.

Greece, for example, has long had a “readmissions agreement” with Turkey but in recent years the numbers of migrants taken back by Ankara are in single figures despite tens of thousands of requests lodged by the Greeks.

The statement from the summit said “migrants who are not in need of international protection” could be deported from the EU back to Turkey, suggesting that Syrians, Iraqis, Eritreans and many Afghans may not be deported from Europe.

The frictions generated by Merkel’s new two-tier immigration policy in Europe are likely to sow greater division rather than heal the rifts that have opened up since June. But with Germany taking in around one million migrants this year, patience is running thin in Berlin.

There are also certain to be major rows over how to fund the Turkey deal. Earlier this month in Valletta, EU leaders said the €3bn was to be disbursed over two years. Ankara wants the money over 12 months. Sunday’s summit failed to stipulate a timeframe. Merkel said the €3bn was “a beginning.”

The European Commission has said €500m will come from the EU budget, with the remaining €2.5bn from EU governments. But Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said he wanted a lot more to come from the EU budget.

With the east Europeans, by far the biggest beneficiaries of the EU budget, refusing to take part in the quotas, there may be attempts to redivert money to Turkey from the large structural and cohesion funds that go to the east Europeans. Poland’s new abrasive, eurosceptic rightwing government can be safely predicted to raise hell.

Juncker said he will come up with a system for redistributing an annual “contingent” of refugees from Turkey among the coalition of the willing countries. Reports in Berlin put the figure at 400,000. He is expected to leave that until after the looming French regional elections for fear of boosting the chances of the anti-EU, anti-immigrant Front National of Marine Le Pen.

Davis Cameron said: “This summit matters because we need a comprehensive solution to the migrant crisis in Europe and obviously that involves Turkey.

“Britain will continue to play our role, which is about supporting Syrian refugees in the refugee camps and in Turkey.

“In terms of the discussions this afternoon, a lot of it will be about the Schengen no borders zone that we’re not a member of. Britain in the European Union will keep our border controls, vital to our security that they are”. /Guardian