Mirage

Short of deciding what degree of curvature a banana should have, the politicians in Brussels don’t seem to be capable of reaching consensus on anything. This is why they find it good to have some really assertive people who come and tell them what to do. Like in the case of the EU - Turkey deal. A one man (woman) show took place in Brussels to build up a smokescreen designed to pacify the EU citizens and to buy the government some time. All’s good. Not.

The basic idea of the “Turkey deal” consists of being able to send back to Turkey all “irregular” refugees. For this, one needed to get the agreement of the Turkish government. Who’s “irregular”? Unregistered refugees. What’s the catch? For every unregistered guy, Turkey will send one who’s got papers and is sitting in a camp there, nicely awaiting entry to Europe. What’s the problem with the agreement? The fact that it only has to do with the refugees who are coming from the camps on Greek islands. So all the next guy needs to do is to use his mobile phone to tell his cronies to change the route to mainland, where this agreement doesn’t count. Easy peasy.

But also on the islands everything remains difficult. Article 19 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU says unambiguously that group expulsions are not allowed. This is a binding right for all EU states. One simply cannot send back a boatload of refugees to Turkey, even if it has agreed to take them back. Enter delusion number one, as they rarely travel alone.

Delusion number two: EU -Turkey deal plans to send back only the boat refugees who either make no asylum application or whose asylum application is obviously groundless. Here one asks himself, what the EU leaders think, if in fact they are able to, in their obvious delirium. Do they think that large amounts of boat refugees are going to stop applying for asylum, so that one can send them back with return mail to Turkey? Do they think that people from countries where there’s no war or political pursuit are going to nicely present their passports, so that one can recognise at a first sight that their asylum application is groundless? Do they think that nobody instructs the boat passengers how one must behave, so that one is not sent back?

In any case, a Syrian will present his passport and make his asylum application. This is the basic right of every politically persecuted person who reaches EU (article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights). This right is not revoked. The refugee is entitled to individual proof of his case, which is not magically going to turn into a quick procedure. In other words: The idea that “irregular” Syrians can be rejected and be exchanged for “regular” ones from Turkish camps is a mirage.

Moreover, Turkey is not considered a safe third country. Therefore, the European Court of Human Rights would intervene immediately if Syrian citizens are sent back to Turkey, without the opportunity of an asylum procedure.

By the way, according to the agreements of the summit, the Greek authorities are responsible for the asylum applications made on the islands. This regulation is simply outrageous, because we know that since 2011, illegally entering refugees may not be transferred by the EU to Greece because the European Court of Human Rights has postulated in its M.S.S. against Belgium and Greece, that „ according to their judgment, Greece is unable to guarantee a humane asylum procedure“. This judgment renders Dublin agreement ineffective, and Greece can just wave refugees through into the other EU countries. So what’s the story here? Don’t they read their own agreements, or do they hope we won’t? Why not just give Turkey a status of a safe third country? There isn’t a war going on there, is there? And we haven’t even touched on the Kurdish problem.

One can send refugees back to a safe third country – because they are safe there. A safe third country must respect the European Convention on Human Rights and the Geneva refugee convention. Turkey has signed both conventions, latter, however (as did Hungary) only with restriction to European refugees. To solve the refugee problem in the Aegean Sea, the EU would have to move Turkey to recognise the Geneva refugee convention without limitation and to finally step down on offences against the Convention on Human Rights. Indeed, this would require money and other concessions. But under the current deal, Turkey receives money and other concessions anyway. Keep flapping your ears, Europeans.

The EU needs a border of safe third countries in her EU external frontier – states in which refugees are safe. This would contribute substantially to the fact that the stream of the refugees be limited to the ones who are really persecuted. The solution of the refugee's crisis lays not in the import of the refugees to Europe, but in the export of European values in the neighbouring states of the EU.