European leaders are to discuss measures to ease the region’s migration crisis, with Turkey the focus of their efforts in Brussels.
Nearly 600,000 migrants have reached the EU by sea so far this year.
Turkey is hosting some two million migrants, most of them fleeing the war in neighbouring Syria.
Ahead of the summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the need for a joint EU effort to tackle the crisis and said Turkey played a “key role”.
“Most war refugees that come to Europe travel via Turkey. We won’t be able to order and stem the refugee movement without working together with Turkey,” she told the German parliament on Thursday morning.
The 28 EU leaders meeting in Brussels are hoping the Turkish government will sign up to a joint action plan that includes:
Greater financial and procedural support for Turkey to deal with migrants
Gaining permission from Turkey to help patrol its coastline
Combating people smuggling
Strengthening return operations
In exchange, Turkey would undertake various measures including implementing asylum procedures and giving priority to “the opening of the six refugee reception centres built with EU co-funding”.
The Turkish government, however, is expected to press for more rapid progress towards visa-free travel for its citizens to European countries that have abolished border controls within the so-called Schengen area.
European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans is in Turkey to discuss the crisis. “The EU needs Turkey and Turkey needs the EU,” he said.
Mrs Merkel is expected in Turkey for more talks at the weekend.
In a letter to EU leaders, European Council President Donald Tusk warned that the regional situation was “difficult and politically very complex.
“Just to give one example, Turkey is calling on us to support the establishment of a safe zone in northern Syria, whereas Russia – increasingly engaged in Syria – is openly rejecting this idea.”
He went on: “We must ask ourselves if the decisions we have taken so far, and the ones we are going to take on Thursday, are sufficient to contain a new migratory wave” – a wave, he warned, that could mean millions of new arrivals in the spring.
Source: Reuters
