Thursday 14 / November / 2024
Brussels/Ankara: The number of migrants arriving in Greece dropped 90 per cent in April, the European Union border agency said on Friday even as Turkey said on Friday talks with the European Union on a deal providing visa-free travel in return for stopping a flow of illegal migrants into Europe had reached an impasse and the bloc must find a "new formula" to salvage the agreement.
The agency, Frontex, said 2,700 people arrived in Greece from Turkey in April, most of them from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, a 90 per cent decline from March.
Under the EU's agreement with Turkey, all migrants and refugees, including Syrians, who cross to Greece illegally across the sea are sent back. In return, the EU will take in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and reward it with more money, early visa-free travel and faster progress in EU membership talks.
In Italy, 8,370 migrants arrived through the longer and more dangerous route from northern Africa, Frontex said. Eritreans, Egyptians and Nigerians accounted for the largest share.
There was no sign migrants were shifting from the route to Greece to the central Mediterranean route, Frontex said. The number of people arriving in Italy in April was down 13 per cent from March and down by half from April 2015.
That particular statement was contested by the Norwegian Refugee Council, an Oslo-based humanitarian agency. It cited Thursday's announcement by Italian coastguards that they had helped rescue 801 people, including many Syrians, from two boats heading from Northern Africa to Italy.
"This might be a first sign of Syrian refugees now choosing the much more dangerous route across the Mediterranean from Northern Africa to Italy, in search of protection in Europe," said Edouard Rodier, Europe director at the council.
"If this continues, the EU-Turkey deal is not only a failure, but may also result in more deaths at sea," he said in an statement emailed to Reuters.
Meanwhile, the comments, some of the harshest yet from Turkey's EU Minister Volkan Bozkir, will further heighten concerns in Brussels about the future of the deal.
While Brussels is desperate for it to succeed, it also insists that Turkey meet 72 criteria, including reining in its broad anti-terror laws.
The EU and rights groups say Turkey uses the laws to stifle dissent, while Ankara says it needs sweeping legislation to fight Kurdish insurgents and IS militant group.
"I am not very optimistic about the outcome of the talks we held in Brussels today. It's essential that the European Commission find a new formula," Bozkir told reporters in Brussels, in comments broadcast live on Turkish television.
His comments come a after President Tayyip Erdogan ratcheted up pressure on Europe over the deal, accusing the bloc of setting new hurdles for visa-free travel and threatening that Turkey may go its own way if they failed to agree.
Turkey's record on press freedom is a growing concern in Europe. Prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting Erdogan since he became president in 2014, including journalists, cartoonists and teenagers.
A German satirist is also facing prosecution after mocking him on German TV, a case that has widespread public outrage in Germany.
Erdogan bristles at suggestions Turkey uses its anti-terrorism laws indiscriminately. He says he is determined to crush militants fighting an insurgency in the mainly Kurdish southeast, and is unlikely to sanction Ankara backing down on the European demands.
