EU-Turkey Refugee Deal: Buck-Passing and Bargaining on Human Lives at Risk? (original) (raw)
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The Syrian displacement crisis is the most compelling humanitarian crisis of our times. The mass displacement of Syrians did not only cause challenges for Syria’s neighboring countries -including Turkey as the largest host of displaced Syrians- but also the European Union Member States. It has also call into question the principle of “responsibility-sharing” in the context of the international protection of refugees, Human Rights Law and Refugee Law. As a result of a long negotiation process between Turkey and EU over the protection, and care of displaced Syrians, the parties agreed upon a text that is called the EU-Turkey “Refugee Deal”. The deal was met with a chorus of objection by scholars, legal experts and international NGOs who criticized it for contradicting the general principles of the international Human Rights Law, Refugee Law and the EU Asylum Law. This paper studies the pathway that lead EU and Turkey to sign the “Refugee Deal”, its content and clauses, implications and potential risks that are likely to occur in practice, with an emphasis on the contribution and/or detriment that the deal would bring to the notion of responsibility-sharing in international humanitarian system.
As of March 2016, Europe (EU) deports most Syrian refugees approaching its Southern shores in search of a safe haven on a " fast track procedure " to Turkey. The EU and Turkey sealed what is commonly called the " EU-Turkey Deal ". Turkey already hosts the highest number of refugees in the world, but by accepting to host even more asylum seekers, it receives economic and political concessions. In this paper I argue that the deal is part of a larger paradigm, the paradigm of permanency, which replaces the previous one of temporariness. States started seeking long term solutions, instead of short term ones, in view of the fact that the protracted limbo into which Syrian refugees are plunged forces asylum seekers to challenge borders, and seek entry. Movement en masse will not stop, as the appalling images of the 2015 " Summer of Migration " showed, given that the return of refugees to Syria in the foreseeable future is not plausible; the ongoing war wrought massive destruction in most parts of the country. I further argue that only by assessing whether it is ethical for the EU to actively refuse permanency of a people on its soil, by paying off others to host them, can we evaluate whether the current politics of borders, within which the EU-Turkish deal is sealed, are morally and politically sustainable.
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According to many intellectuals and many institutions, the world is currently facing the most serious refugee/displacement crisis after the Second World War. There are currently 79.5 million forcibly displaced people, all around the globe, according to the 2019 UNHCR Commission Report. Due to this huge crisis, European Union has worked with Turkey by signing the bilateral agreement on preventing irregular migrations to European borders. Within the scope of the agreement, several criticisms concerning human rights violations are directed from the perspective of EU values and international norms. In this context, the study is aiming to explain the term of irregular migration in the scope of the EU-Turkey agreement signed in 2016 and to examine the agreement from the values of the European Union in accordance with international norms.
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The migrant crisis that has stemmed from the ongoing strife in the MENA region is one of the most devastating and consequential crises of modern times. Its impact has been felt across continents, in countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, along with European Union member states and the United States. In addition to unprecedented regional humanitarian challeng- es, the crisis shook Europe to its core by challenging its political institutions and humanitarian values. e rise of populism and Islamophobia in the West in general is closely associated with the migrant crisis that has pushed the capacity of countries to their limits. Perhaps no relationship has been more a ected by the refugee crisis than that between the European Union and Turkey. EU-Turkey relations have been strained and undermined by the migrant crisis to such a degree that it seems to have created a “make or break” moment in Turkey’s EU accession talks. is analysis outlines the process through which the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan (JAP) on refugees came into being and examines the impact of the agreement, including its challenges and successes. It also seeks to under- stand how heightened tensions between the EU and Turkey will a ect the longevity and e ectiveness of the agreement.
On 18 March 2016 the European Union and Turkey reached an agreement aimed at solving the issue of the high numbers of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Greece. This agreement intended to close the people-smuggling routes and reduce the number of migrants entering the EU. It focused principally on the following issues: returning to Turkey any migrant entering Greece from Turkey irregularly; and resettling, for every migrant readmitted by Turkey, another Syrian from Turkey. In order to compensate Turkey, the EU committed to accelerating the visa liberalisation roadmap and allocating six billion euros to Turkey to deal with the refugee crisis. Finally, both the EU and Turkey agreed to improve humanitarian conditions in Syria to allow Syrians to remain in the country. This agreement has been heavily criticised by humanitarian organisations and by the European population, and its consistency with international human rights and European laws on refugees is questionable. The agreement comprises nine action points. This paper will analyse five of those points in order to establish whether it respects EU and international law. KEYWORDS: refugees – EU-Turkey agreement – resettlement – non-refoulement – return – asylum.
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Now in its fifth year, the war in Syria has triggered the largest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time. For most refugees, Turkey is the main transit country to reach Europe, where they hope for a better life. However, Europe has not yet been able to provide a long-term sustainable response to the current refugee situation. Meanwhile, Turkey has become the largest refugee-hosting country in the world with over 2.7 million refugees. As this paper argues, the EU and Turkey need each other in handling the refugee crisis. A failure to cooperate will put the future of hundreds of thousands of Syrians refugees on hold and have irreversible consequences for EU-Turkey relations.
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The 2015 Mediterranean migration and refugee crisis demonstrated in the strictest way that the EU was unable to coordinate and share responsibilities to tackle the issue. In many ways, the EU failed to promote refugee rights; in the literature, it is affirmed that “the implemented EU policies exacerbated violations of protection norms and human rights of refugees” and led to “a widespread policy of a deliberate containment.” The absence of safe and legal means to claim asylum from outside the EU was a key contributing factor in the crisis. The EU’s inhumane policies, deliberately implemented, led to violations of refugee rights with the implementation of the infamous EU-Turkey deal/statement. This project aims to draw attention to the policy responses and future potentials of multiple stakeholders in refugee protection between Turkey and the EU six years after the implementation of the EU-Turkey deal. It is nourished by a critical analysis of the existing literature and studies in EU-Turkey relations and refugee policy along with findings via participatory methods.