History of Global Arms Transfer, 3 (2017), pp. 31-39

A Deal between EU and Turkey on
Matters of the Refugee, Readmission andVisa Liberalisation
By MUSTAFA TÜRKES*This paper explores why and how the government of Justice and Development
Party (JDP) and the European Union (EU) reached the so-called 18 March deal
on the Syrian refugee issue. First, this paper points out the motives of both theEU, particularly Merkel, and the JDP leadership. Second, it shows basic flaws in
the approaches of both sides regarding the refugee issue, the readmissionagreement and visa liberalisation. It further asserts that the failure of the deal had
some impact on Turkey as well as the EU. In fact, the refugee problem and thevisa liberalisation issue have not been solved, but only transformed. This paperargues that refugees are the victims and, once again, are being instrumentalisedby both sides.

I
Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, and Ahmet Davutoğlu, prime minister ofTurkey at the time, decided on 18 March 2016 to release the EU–Turkey statement
regarding Syrian refugees. Following the civil war in Syria, from 2012 up to 2016, some
2.700.000 refugees poured into Turkey, among whom considerable numbers wanted toreach to western Europe via Greece. The 18 March statement was widely presented to havebeen the most significant turning point for the settlement of the refugee problem. Bothsides asserted to have committed themselves to a successful end result. However, theEuropean Union (EU) and Justice and Development Party (JDP) leadership have different
expectations from this deal and, thus, have attributed different meanings to the accord.
This paper, first, will make clear the strategies of the EU and JDP leadership and, second,
will point out basic flaws in both sides’ approaches regarding the refugee problem, thereadmission agreement and visa liberalisation. This paper will argue that the refugee issue
has been a bargaining chip for both the EU and JDP leadership to achieve their own
objectives.

II
The EU–Turkey statement (see appendix), dated 18 March 2016, on the refugee issue is nota treaty; it is a deal. It is not legally binding until it is ratified by both sides. For the sake ofbrevity, it may be called an accord.
Implementation of the nine points in the accord depends on mutual trust, which does notexist. Despite lack of mutual trust, initially each side presented the deal as a success story,* Professor, Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara-Turkey－ 31 －

MUSTAFA TÜRKES
but later each side became cautious. In reality, it is an ambiguous deal and is against any
form of this deal. The deal is about refugees,1 but their views are not taken into account. On
the same token, voices of refugee agencies, and even the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are kept at arms’ length.
How humane an attitude did the two sides adopt? A ‘one in–one out’ resettlement
principle was advocated by both sides and considered to be the most important aspect of
this deal. It replaced the chaotic, irregular and dangerous influx of refugees with a regularand safer path for entering into the EU. It was the main objective and, at the same time,
most problematic principle set by this deal. The principle was that, for each refugee thatreaches the Greek islands from Turkey, one will be returned to Turkey, and an asylum
seeker in Turkey will be resettled in the EU. Even though the authors of the deal were
careful enough to adjust the language of the deal to the UN refugee convention, it is quite
fair to argue that this ‘one in–one out’ scheme is problematic in light of the refugee
convention. In this regard, the major criticism to this deal is that each asylum seeker should
be dealt with on an individual basis, not according to a blanket policy, because the UNHCR
opposes the use of the notion of a safe country of origin or transit as leading to automaticrefusals of asylum seekers from those countries and considers the notion to be contrary to
the necessary individual determination of refugee status under the 1951 Convention.2 It istrue that there is such a statement in the EU–Turkey refugee deal, but it is ambiguous onwhat grounds one can have the right to send a Syrian asylum seeker to Turkey from theGreek islands who seeks to reach the EU and substitute him/her with another Syrian asylum
seeker in Turkey to be sent to one of EU countries. This is one of the reasons the UNHCR
officially refused to be a signatory party to this accord.
There are some other problematic issues in the deal as well. The readmission treaties theEU signed with the third countries rest on the London Resolution on safe third countries,
adopted 1 December 1992.3 This resolution establishes the criteria determining whether acountry in which an asylum seeker has stayed, or through which he has transited before
coming to a member state where he has applied for asylum, can be considered as a safecountry. According to this resolution, if a country of transit is found to be a safe county,
this precludes a substantial examination of the asylum claim and opens the way to thereturn of asylum seekers to that country. In this regard, the EU–Turkey refugee deal restson the designation of Turkey as a safe third country. However, beyond the early debatesover whether Turkey is a safe country, Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported on 20 May
2016 that a Greek immigration tribunal has ruled that Turkey is not a safe country to sendrefugees— throwing into jeopardy the EU–Turkey plan to return Syrians currently on
Greek islands en masse to Turkey.4
Moreover, some asylum seekers might lose their vested interests and status as a result of
their return from Greece to Turkey. For example, if a Syrian asylum seeker is sent back to
Turkey from Greece, he/she will be treated as ‘guest’ in Turkey, as Turkey has some
1 For a detailed analsis of refugee law, see James C. Hathaway and R. A. Neve, ‘Making International Refugee
Law Relevant Again: A Proposal for Collectivized and Solution-Oriented Protection’, Harvard Human Rights
Journal, 10, 1997, pp.115–211. For related concepts, see also Emily Bazelon, ‘Who Qualifies for “Asylum”?’,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/magazine/who-qualifies-for-asylum.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150915&nlid=
62664474&tntemail0=y&_r=1
2 http://www.unhcr.org/43662e712.pdf
3 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/workingpapers/libe/pdf/108_en.pdf.
4 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-eu-syrian-refugees-turkey-blocked-bygreek-court-a7039886.html; http://www.kathimerini.gr/860436/article/epikairothta/ellada/mh-asfalhs-trith--xwrah-toyrkia.

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A DEAL BETWEEN EU AND TURKEY ON MATTERS OF THE REFUGEE,
READMISSION AND VISA LIBERALISATION
geographic limitations in its definition of asylum seekers.5 That is to say that a Syrian
asylum seeker may gain asylum-seeker status when he/she is in Greece, but his/her statuswill be blurred after being sent back to Turkey. Such practices may create a precedent for
further deconstruction of existing asylum-seeking rules. It is a tangible challenge to the
UNHCR rules and a big concern for the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
Merkel, chancellor of Germany, and Davutoğlu, prime minister of Turkey, concertedly
presented that one of the significant objectives of the EU is to prevent the illegal crossingof asylum seekers, particularly from the Balkan route6 into the EU, and this deal, theyasserted, will solve it. Such an argument does not hold water since the Balkan route is not
the only way illegal actors can make use of it, though it may be the shortest one. Illegal
crossing is possible from the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa and northeast Europe.
The EU tends to exaggerate its responsibility and the social and economic burdens.
According to the deal, the total number of refugees that EU members will accept are 72.000
over three years as part of the ‘one in–one out’ scheme. This amount is too small, given thefact that, in Turkey alone, there are around 2,7 million Syrian refugees.7
The right-wing parties in the EU are presenting the refugee issue as a matter of threat toEuropean societies,8 which is not a simple flaw in its argument but a clear distortion of thewhole issue. The total number of refugees is not too large to destroy security, social order
or threaten ethnic and cultural composition in the EU. If the problem were limited to thetotal number of refugees, it would be possible to say that the EU countries could easily
absorb refugees. The case of Germany is a good example. Germany voluntarily accepts halfa million in foreign labour force every year. Instead of accepting half a million in labour
force among refugees, the Merkel government wants to introduce a quota system that each
EU member state would take some refugees, and the government also tends to exaggerate
the refugee problem as if it were a threat to societies in the EU.
Merkel, German chancellor, has been alarmed from 2014 onwards about a growing
refugee influx into the EU, within which most asylum seekers wanted to reach Germany.
Merkel brought the refugee issue into the EU agenda and expected to share the burden in
the EU.9 He argued that Turkey should shoulder more responsibility to prevent refugees
entering the EU.
Victor Orban, a nationalist conservative prime minister of Hungary, presented the wholeissue as a matter of ‘democracy’ and attempted a referendum in Hungary. On 2 October
5 Alexander ürgin
Derya Aşıkoğlu, ‘Turkey’s New Asylum Law: A Case of E Influence’, Journal of
Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, November 2015: 1–15; Dilek Latif, ‘Refugee Policy of the Turkish Republic’,
The Turkish Yearbook, 33, 2002, pp. 1 29; Kemal Kirişçi, ‘Is Turkey Lifting the “Geographical Limitation” The
November 1994 Regulation on Asylum in Turkey’, International Journal of Refugee Law, 8:3, 1996, pp. 293–
318.
6 For Western Balkan Route, see Frontex, http://frontex.europa.eu/trends-and-routes/western-balkan-route/. For
map see ‘Migratory Routes Map’ http://frontex.europa.eu/trends-and-routes/migratory-routes-map/
7 In March 2016, there were 4,8 million Syrians displaced in the region; 2,7 million in Turkey, 1 million in
Lebanon, 640,000 in Jordan, 250,000 in Iraq and 120,000 in Egypt. See ‘Syria Regional Refugee Response,’
UNHCR Inter-Agency Information Sharing Portal. http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php.
8 For a study on migration and security threat see Michela Ceccorulli, ‘Migration as a security threat: internaland external dynamics in the European Union’, Forum on the Problems of Peace and War, Florence, GARNET,
Working Paper No: 65/09, April 2009;http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/csgr/garnet/workingpapers/6509.pdf/
9 European Commission, ‘Refugee Crisis: European Commission takes decisive action’, Press Release, 9September 2015, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5596_en.htm; ‘Mother Angela: Merkel’s Refugee
Policy Divides Europe,’ Spiegel, 21 September 2015, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/refugeepolicy-of-chancellor-merkel-divides-europe-a-1053603.html; Louise Ridley, ‘Angela Merkel’s Immigration
Quotes’, The Huffington Post, 1 September 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/01/angela-merkelimmigration-migrants-germany_n_8069928.html.

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MUSTAFA TÜRKES
2016, an overwhelming majority of the Hungarian voters were against the binding decision
to relocate asylum seekers among the EU members.10 Although 98 percent of voters voted
against it, the result was invalid, since the turnout was less than the 50 percent threshold.
Only 40.41 percent of those registered on the electoral lists participated in the referendum.11
While economists argue that this is ‘a defeat for populism in Hungary’, Orban claims that
‘Brussels can no longer force its will on Hungary’. 12
How it will affect the EU’s refugee system remains to be seen. However, it can be said
that extreme right-wing parties in the EU will challenge Merkel’s quota proposal. Although
Merkel’s proposal was not a solution to the problem, it could lower the tension in Germany.
This is what Merkel lost.
It may be said that the motive of the EU, in particular Germany under the Merkel
government, was that refugees could be kept in the periphery of core Europe. The deal withTurkey, they had assumed, would serve this purpose. However, the 18 March accord was
not fully implemented because of two reasons: one is that there were flaws in the EU’s
strategy, as noted previously, and second, Erdoğan’s objectives kept moving.
Having examined the motives of the EU, now let’s explore the JDP leadership’s motives.
There are three definable motives for the JDP government: a) financial burden sharing, b)
an attempt to renew the partnership for recovering hegemony and c) the linkage policy.
Whether or not there was a personal motive for Davutoğlu is an open uestion that needs tobe taken up in a separate study, though suffice it to say that some journalists hinted thatErdoğan, president of Turkey and the real power in the JDP, replaced Davutoğlu on 22 May
2016 with inali Yıldırım due to Erdoğan’s growing suspicion that Davutoğlu could haveconstructed his personal power through the support of EU policy makers that, in the longrun, could undermine Erdoğan’s power in the JDP.13

III
Syrian refugees have poured into Turkey from 2012 onwards. The JDP government has
refrained from getting involved in the UNHCR and other international organisations andassociations to handle the refugees. Instead, the JDP government provided humanitarian aid
to refugees who have been officially defined as ‘guests’. Why the JDP kept internationalorganisations at arm’s length remains unclear since this question is avoided by JDP policy
makers.
As Merkel brought the refugee issue into the EU’s agenda and expected to share theburden among EU countries, so did the JDP government. Parallel to negotiations among theE members, Merkel negotiated with Davutoğlu as prime minister (September 2014 May
2016). Indeed, the text of the 18 March deal is the product of the negotiation between
Merkel and Davutoğlu (the text is supported by the E commission, but failed to be
10 The exact wording of the question is ‘Do you want the European Union to be entitled to prescribe themandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without the consent of the National Assembly?’
11 Sven Milekic, Maria Cheresheva and Milivoje Pantovic, ‘Balkans Unlikely to Follow Hungary’s Migrant
Vote’, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/balkans-not-likely-to-follow-hungarian-no-to-migrant-quotas-0930-2016-1?utm_source=Balkan+Insight+Newsletters&utm_campaign=a89d1f36ee-BI_DAILY&utm_
medium=email&utm_term=0_4027db42dc-a89d1f36ee-319773269
12 ‘A Defeat for Populism in Hungary, Viktor Orban fails to win his referendum against migrants’, Electronic
Version of Economist, 3 October 2016; http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21708083-anti-refugee-publicityploy-falls-far-short-needed-turnout-viktor-orban-fails-win-his?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/2016103n/owned/n/n/ nwl/
n/n/n/email&etear=Dailydispatch.
13 https://pelikandosyasi.wordpress.com/－ 34 －

A DEAL BETWEEN EU AND TURKEY ON MATTERS OF THE REFUGEE,
READMISSION AND VISA LIBERALISATION
sanctioned by the EU parliament and has not yet been tested in the EU Council).
For Davutoğlu, the financial issue was a matter of recognition of his role as actor at theE level, as he negotiated without Erdoğan’s direct involvement. What is more is,
Davutoğlu returned to Ankara, presenting himself as a strong negotiator, with highpersuasive skills like ‘Kayserili’,14 and boasting that he doubled the total amount of the EU
contribution from 3 billion to 6 billion Euros. In total, 3 billion plus 3 billion Euros would
be spent with the approval of the E Commission. Erdoğan had warned Davutoğlu that,when he was negotiating the deal in Brussels, he should come to Turkey with 3 billion Euroin cash, not in words.15
The financial issue seems to have been secondary to the other two motives: b) the attempt
to renew the partnership for recovering hegemony and c) the linkage policy.
As this paper has argued elsewhere,16 the JDP had attained historic bloc through the holy
alliance that was involved in a coalescence of domestic and external forces and dismantled
the Kemalist state structure. However, the JDP’s assertive neo-Ottomanist foreign policy
and increasing authoritarianism caused a decline in hegemony, as shown in the 7 June 2015
elections, which was later revived at the 1 November elections through coerciveness at thedomestic level and trade-offs at the international level. At the domestic level, thecoerciveness continues and the 18 March 2016 deal is the reflection of the trade-offs
between the JDP and the EU (a similar process continues with the United States over
Syria). Its main objective is to revive hegemony through trade-offs on external relations.
The EU policy makers knew of such a weakness in the JDP position at the external leveland made use of it, and as JDP policy makers knew the challenge faced by the Merkel
government, both came to a point of understanding. However, both sides were assertive intheir objectives. While German policy forced the JDP government to promise that Syrian
refugees will remain in Turkey, the JDP government insisted that there is a link between the
refugee issue, the readmission agreement and visa liberalisation.17
The readmission agreement had been signed between the JDP government and the EU in2013 and the JDP leadership expected that the readmission agreement would enter into
force in October 2016 together with - yet to be finalised – the EU’s visa liberalisation for
Turkish citizens.
The readmission agreement was ratified at the Turkish Grand National Assembly andsanctioned by the E decision mechanisms. As president, Erdoğan gave his consent topublication of the readmission treaty, and it was printed at the official gazette of Turkey on
20 May 2016. This does not mean the procedure is finalised. The cabinet has to work out adirective to implement the international treaty. It appears that Erdoğan establishes a direct
link between implementation of the readmission treaty and visa liberalisation. The visa
liberalisation was a part of the deal between Davutoğlu and Tusk, president of the Ecouncil, though the EU conditioned that Turkey had to complete 72 items that wereidentified by the EU commission as pre-conditions.18
14 ‘Davutoğlu: A ile Kayserili pazarlığı yaptık’, Hürriyet, 08 March 2016; http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/
davutoglu-ab-ile-kayserili-pazarligi-yaptik-40065646.
15 ‘Erdoğan: Temenni Ederim Davutoğlu 3 Milyar Euro ile Döner ’; https://tr.sputniknews.com/
politika/20160307/1021330962/erdogan-davutoglu-3-milyar-euro.html; see also http://t24.com.tr/haber/erdoganumarim-basbakan-brukselden-3-milyar-euroyu-alarak-doner,331090.
16 Mustafa Türkeş, ‘Decomposing Neo- ttoman Hegemony’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies,
18:3, 2016, pp. 191–216.
17 http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/index/geri-kabul-anlasmasi; http://www.mfa.gov.tr/soru-cevap.tr.mfa; http://
www.ntv.com.tr/turkiye/ibrahim-kalindan-vize-muafiyeti-aciklamasi,jk3rAp27S0erj1NLX5ST1g.
18 http://www.abhaber.com/vize-serbestisi-icin-72-kriter/－ 35 －

MUSTAFA TÜRKES
Turkey has completed almost all of the items defined as pre-conditions, except one
condition that is a revision of the law for anti-terror, which seems to be blocking thelinkage strategy. While the EU put pressure on the JDP government to change the law on
anti-terror, JDP policy makers argue that, given the degree of terrorism at large, Turkey
should not be expected to revise the law for anti-terror. Following the attempt to overthrow
the JDP government on 15 July 2016 by the Gülen community, which was a member of the‘holy alliance’ of the JDP until 2011, the JDP took this opportunity to crack down on
potential opposition and would totally ignore the revision of the law for anti-terror. In late
September 2016, the EU revealed that, out of 72, only seven items remained to be met forproviding visa liberalisation.19 Although the European Commission gave a green light to
the JDP leadership to repair their relations, it appears that Erdoğan and prime minister
Yıldırım are not interested in the deal and insist that the E should keep up its financial
promise (3 billion plus 3 billion euros) and extend visa liberalisation to Turkish citizens,
while the EU turns deaf to this claim.
Both the EU and the JDP administration are distorting the reality. The crux of the matteris that the EU policy makers have long turned blind eyes to the growing authoritarianism of
the JDP rule in return to a trade-off over the refugee problem that Turkey would keep
refugees in Turkey, while the JDP pursues coercive policies to sustain its internal power
and wants not to be criticised by the EU.

IV
To conclude, it may be stated that the EU is acting as a hegemon capable of squeezing the
JDP government into a corner to get the 18 March deal fully implemented and, above all, toforce Turkey to keep 2,7 million refugees and put the readmission treaty into force without
linking it with visa liberalisation.
For Erdoğan and the JDP, linkage is essential, not only because they are interrelated, butalso particularly because the JDP wishes to hold the trade-off leverages in its own hands inorder to revive its partnership with the EU policy makers. Whether this strategy of linkage
through trade-offs helps sustain its wish to revive old hegemony in a new form is openended. It may work for a while, but in the medium and long term, it is unlikely.
The linkage policies taken up by the two sides are conflicted, and thus problems are notsolved, only transformed.
A final point is that the norms, ethics and EU standards have rapidly become a subject fornegotiations, and both the EU and JDP have not missed such opportunity, of course at theexpense of refugees. Refugees have been victims of systematic wrong policies, and once
again, they are being instrumentalised.
Appendix: EU–Turkey Statement, 18 March 2016
Today the Members of the European Council met with their Turkish counterpart. This
was the third meeting since November 2015 dedicated to deepening Turkey–EU
relations as well as addressing the migration crisis.
19 European Commission, ‘Delivering on migration and border management: Commission reports on progress
made under the European Agenda on Migration Brussels’, Press Release 28 September 2016, http://europa.eu/
rapid/press-release_IP-16-3183_en.htm.

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A DEAL BETWEEN EU AND TURKEY ON MATTERS OF THE REFUGEE,
READMISSION AND VISA LIBERALISATIONThe Members of the European Council expressed their deepest condolences to thepeople of Turkey following the bomb attack in Ankara on Sunday. They strongly
condemned this heinous act and reiterated their continued support to fight terrorism in
all its forms.
Turkey and the European Union reconfirmed their commitment to the implementationof their joint action plan activated on 29 November 2015. Much progress has beenachieved already, including Turkey’s opening of its labour market to Syrians under
temporary protection, the introduction of new visa requirements for Syrians and othernationalities, stepped up security efforts by the Turkish coast guard and police andenhanced information sharing. Moreover, the European Union has begun disbursing the
3 billion euro of the Facility for Refugees in Turkey for concrete projects and work has
advanced on visa liberalisation and in the accession talks, including the opening ofChapter 17 last December. On 7 March 2016, Turkey furthermore agreed to accept the
rapid return of all migrants not in need of international protection crossing from Turkey
into Greece and to take back all irregular migrants intercepted in Turkish waters. Turkey
and the EU also agreed to continue stepping up measures against migrant smugglers andwelcomed the establishment of the NATO activity on the Aegean Sea. At the same time
Turkey and the EU recognise that further, swift and determined efforts are needed.
In order to break the business model of the smugglers and to offer migrants analternative to putting their lives at risk, the EU and Turkey today decided to end theirregular migration from Turkey to the EU. In order to achieve this goal, they agreed on
the following additional action points:
1) All new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greek islands as from 20 March
2016 will be returned to Turkey. This will take place in full accordance with EU andinternational law, thus excluding any kind of collective expulsion. All migrants will beprotected in accordance with the relevant international standards and in respect of theprinciple of non-refoulement. It will be a temporary and extraordinary measure which isnecessary to end the human suffering and restore public order. Migrants arriving in the
Greek islands will be duly registered and any application for asylum will be processedindividually by the Greek authorities in accordance with the Asylum Procedures
Directive, in cooperation with UNHCR. Migrants not applying for asylum or whose
application has been found unfounded or inadmissible in accordance with the said
directive will be returned to Turkey. Turkey and Greece, assisted by EU institutions andagencies, will take the necessary steps and agree any necessary bilateral arrangements,
including the presence of Turkish officials on Greek islands and Greek officials in
Turkey as from 20 March 2016, to ensure liaison and thereby facilitate the smoothfunctioning of these arrangements. The costs of the return operations of irregularmigrants will be covered by the EU.
2) For every Syrian being returned to Turkey from Greek islands, another Syrian will beresettled from Turkey to the EU taking into account the UN Vulnerability Criteria. A
mechanism will be established, with the assistance of the Commission, EU agencies andother Member States, as well as the UNHCR, to ensure that this principle will be
implemented as from the same day the returns start. Priority will be given to migrants
who have not previously entered or tried to enter the EU irregularly. On the EU side,
resettlement under this mechanism will take place, in the first instance, by honouring
the commitments taken by Member States in the conclusions of Representatives of theGovernments of Member States meeting within the Council on 20 July 2015, of which
18.000 places for resettlement remain. Any further need for resettlement will be carried－ 37 －

MUSTAFA TÜRKES
out through a similar voluntary arrangement up to a limit of an additional 54.000
persons. The Members of the European Council welcome the Commission’s intention to
propose an amendment to the relocation decision of 22 September 2015 to allow for any
resettlement commitment undertaken in the framework of this arrangement to be offset
from non-allocated places under the decision. Should these arrangements not meet theobjective of ending the irregular migration and the number of returns come close to thenumbers provided for above, this mechanism will be reviewed. Should the number ofreturns exceed the numbers provided for above, this mechanism will be discontinued.
3) Turkey will take any necessary measures to prevent new sea or land routes for illegal
migration opening from Turkey to the EU, and will cooperate with neighbouring states
as well as the EU to this effect.
4) Once irregular crossings between Turkey and the EU are ending or at least have been
substantially and sustainably reduced, a Voluntary Humanitarian Admission Scheme
will be activated. EU Member States will contribute on a voluntary basis to this scheme.
5) The fulfilment of the visa liberalisation roadmap will be accelerated vis-à-vis all
participating Member States with a view to lifting the visa requirements for Turkish
citizens at the latest by the end of June 2016, provided that all benchmarks have been
met. To this end Turkey will take the necessary steps to fulfil the remaining
requirements to allow the Commission to make, following the required assessment ofcompliance with the benchmarks, an appropriate proposal by the end of April on thebasis of which the European Parliament and the Council can make a final decision.
6) The EU, in close cooperation with Turkey, will further speed up the disbursement of
the initially allocated 3 billion euros under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey andensure funding of further projects for persons under temporary protection identified
with swift input from Turkey before the end of March. A first list of concrete projects
for refugees, notably in the field of health, education, infrastructure, food and otherliving costs, that can be swiftly financed from the Facility, will be jointly identified
within a week. Once these resources are about to be used to the full, and provided theabove commitments are met, the EU will mobilise additional funding for the Facility ofan additional 3 billion euro up to the end of 2018.
7) The EU and Turkey welcomed the ongoing work on the upgrading of the Customs
Union.
8) The EU and Turkey reconfirmed their commitment to re-energise the accession
process as set out in their joint statement of 29 November 2015. They welcomed theopening of Chapter 17 on 14 December 2015 and decided, as a next step, to open
Chapter 33 during the Netherlands presidency. They welcomed that the Commission
will put forward a proposal to this effect in April. Preparatory work for the opening ofother Chapters will continue at an accelerated pace without prejudice to Member States’
positions in accordance with the existing rules.
9) The EU and its Member States will work with Turkey in any joint endeavour toimprove humanitarian conditions inside Syria, in particular in certain areas near the
Turkish border which would allow for the local population and refugees to live in areas
which will be more safe.
All these elements will be taken forward in parallel and monitored jointly on a monthly
basis.
The EU and Turkey decided to meet again as necessary in accordance with the jointstatement of 29 November 2015.

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A DEAL BETWEEN EU AND TURKEY ON MATTERS OF THE REFUGEE,
READMISSION AND VISA LIBERALISATION
Source: European Council Pres Release, 18 March 2016
http://dsms.consilium.europa.eu/952/Actions/Newsletter.aspx?messageid=4261&customeri
d=9612&password=enc_3832323931454546_enc
Footnote references‘A Defeat for Populism in Hungary, Viktor Orban fails to win his referendum against migrants’, Electronic
Version of Economist, 3 October 2016; http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21708083-anti-refugeepublicity-ploy-falls-far-short-needed-turnout-viktor-orban-fails-win-his?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/
n/2016103n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/n/email&etear=dailydispatch
Bazelon, Emily, ‘Who Qualifies for “Asylum”?’, New York Times, 15 September 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/magazine/who-qualifies-for-asylum.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150915&n
lid=62664474&tntemail0=y&_r=1
ürgin, Alexander Derya Aşıkoğlu, ‘Turkey’s New Asylum Law: A Case of E Influence’, Journal of
Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, November 2015: 1–15.
Ceccorulli, Michela, ‘Migration as a security threat: internal and external dynamics in the European
Union’, Forum on the Problems of Peace and War, Florence,GARNET, Working Paper No: 65/09, April 2009;http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/csgr/garnet/workingpapers/6509.pdf/‘Erdoğan: Temenni Ederim Davutoğlu 3 Milyar Euro ile Döner ’; https://tr.sputniknews.com/
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