Turkey - Deal or No Deal

[SpringingIntoAction]

The latest offer from Turkey is:

Turkey takes back a non-Syrian migrant who has crossed into Greece and 'replaces' him/her by sending Greece a Syrian refugee, on a one-for-one basis

Plus

The EU pays 6 billion Euros to Turkey

Plus

The EU agrees to permit Turks to travel visa-free within the EU from June 2016 (instead of previously agreed 1 Oct 2016)

Plus

Turkey's full EU membership is fast-tracked.

So, does the EU accept Turkey's deal or say 'No Deal'?

So we return non-Syrians to Turkey and take Syrians from Turkey in return.

Tick

Then Turkey joins the EU and those non-Syrians that we returned to Turkey become EU citizens anyway.

No deal!

I think that the majority of educated Turkish people would much prefer to keep Europe at arms length. However they object to having their air space and border towns appropriated by the West whether America or Europe, they object to the assumption that they can go on accepting tens of thousands of refugees who don't want to be in Turkey but want to pass through it to mainland Europe which Merkel presented as a land flowing with milk and honey.
Turkey isn't a rich country with massive oil reserves. It can't keep on and on with no help. A few years they wanted to join Europe, now...not so much.
My son has lived in Turkey since 1992 and has a Turkish wife. I have a Turkish granddaughter and the extended family is wonderful, honourable and welcoming. The people as a whole are warm and tolerant. Ask them 'deal or no deal?' You might just be surprised at the answer if they were offered a referendum.

Merkel has just appeared and on TV announced a deal has been reached with Turkey:

1. all non-Syrian migrants who reached the Greek islands via people smugglers will be returned to Turkey

and replaced on a one-for-one basis by

2. Syrian migrants in Turkey who will be sent to Greece.
3. Turks get visa-free travel within Schengen area from 1 Oct 2016
4. Turkey gets an additional 3 billion Euro from the EU (in addition to the 3 billion Euro promised to Turkey last November)

How on earth is that going to work?

Does she think the non-Syrian migrants will return meekly to Turkey? There will be riots and civil disobedience

Does she think that even if she manages to send them back to Turkey they will stay there? They will try again, and again.

Does she think she can distinguish a Syrian with no documents from an Iraqi with no documents?

She is inviting the whole Syrian population to come to Germany via that exchange deal

The Eastern European EU members will never accept that deal. Hungary had already refused any deal that meant taking migrants. She's hoping she can spread these Syrian migrants throughout Europe, but few countries will take them

When Turkey joins the EU we'll get all those non-Syrian migrants into the EU anyway so we've only delayed it by a few years.

Merkel is an absolute fool and the sooner we get ourselves out of this madhouse the better. We cannot afford to stay in either financially, paying the Turkish blackmailer, morally or culturally.

I'm OUT

NO CHANCE, Never in the EU, they should also be kicked out of NATO.

That's the deal.

1)Migrant swap
2) 6 billion Euros
3)Accelerated and reinvigorated talks about Turkey's EU membership
4) Visa-free travel for Turkish citizens within the EU from June 16.

The Turkish PM stood on the platform with unelected Junckers, unelected Tusk and Mad Merkel and announced that Turkey had freedom of speech, a free press and that the billions of Euros would not go to the Turkish Govt but would be spent on Syrian refugees.

Our wonderful EU has just entered the people-trafficking business now it's ready to trade human beings with another country.

There are 3 million Syrians in Turkish refugee camps - guess where they will be headed, to join the unaccompanied males who have travelled to Europe already.

This is a disgusting solution. The Syrian should be accommodated in camps with schools and medical facilities near Syria, not transported to mainland Europe where they don't speak the language and the culture is very different. Syria will never now have a population able to return to that country and make it economically viable post-war

Junckers says Turkey is a 'safe' country so it's OK to return migrants. The UN stated the opposite last summer, This 'deal' appears to be contrary to a whole raft of international laws.

I hope the EU member states reject this deal. As it involves them taking a share of these Syrians migrants I expect the eastern European members will refuse it.

We will now probably have a period of media blackout on the migrant crisis as the EU will not want scenes of distressed people being forcibly removed from Europe - while we are deciding which way to vote in our EU referendum.

I am utterly disgusted. Utterly shocked and disgusted that the future of Europe is being decided by Merkel and her unelected bureaucrats in such a callous way.

I never thought the EU would stop so low. It has surpassed even my low expectations. It is a disgusting organisation that trades in people's souls.

I want no part of this. Not in my name.

The tone of this thread is horrible.

BTW ( to the pp that mentioned it) visa free travel doesn't mean the right to live and work in the EU, it also doesn't mean entry to the UK because we are not part of Schengen. HTH

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, if this deal goes though/is ratified it is the beginning of the end for the Western European culture.

The democracy we enjoy, the freedom of expression, the freedom to be gay if you want, equality of the sexes, the ability to be a pagan will all be gradually eroded.

What do you reckon? 50 years if we are lucky?

How anyone with female children can vote stay is truly beyond me.

Springing into action

Excellent post.

You do realise anyone that is against Turkey's entry into the EU and all that goes with it is going to get called a racist
don't you?

It's mainly because people are worried at the turn of events in Turkey as regards of press freedom and renewed attacks on the curds. We feel it's a bit if a deal with the devil. People are aware that Turkey has a spread of different types of people inasmuch as there are uneducated villagers but also intellectuals etc. Many Turks are worried about the press freedom and general freedom aspects of where their country is going. No Turkey should not have to bear this alone but it does beg the question of where are the wealthy gulf states in all this still?

Where this will lead? Who knows?

Indeed we will lose many freedoms. I am pagan so assume I will be one of the first for the chop!

The German far right are going to love this. Does Merkel really want blood on the streets of her country? ISIS certainly do, so it's playing right into their hands.

OP you are right there is a news blackout. All I could find was thiswww.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3480134/EU-leaders-arrive-Brussels-summit-plead-Turkey-hundreds-thousands-migrants.html

I heard all the live announcements last night too.

They said they will go and check with members parliament and put the agreement into place in ten days.

Send those who entered Europe illegally back to Turkey and put them to the end of the list, send a law abiding refugee in their place to Europe.

There will be uproar at the Greek and Macedonia border.

This is the nastiest thread I have read on here. People appear to know nothing about Turkey or its people. There are pockets of Eastern Turkey which are very like some Muslim countries in terms of dress and attitudes and I hold no brief for Erdogan (or Merkel or David Cameron). However, in Izmir, Istanbul and the tourist seaside towns you will see more mini skirts than burkas on Turkish women. I have travelled to Turkey three times a year for 20 years, I stay with Turkish families and am invited to their homes. I travel alone and (until recent terrorist events) felt safer in Istanbul than in London, although these days I don't feel safe in any city.
My Turkish ddil has always worked at a job she loves, dgd goes out with her friends (she is 16) and dresses fashionably.
Stop bloody scare mongering.

Lucky you mouse. The one time I went to Turkey I was sexually assaulted and lucky to get away without being raped.

HelpfulChap
You do realise anyone that is against Turkey's entry into the EU and all that goes with it is going to get called a racist
don't you?

I always ignore charges that are factually correct.
Turks are not a race so I cannot be racist if I object to their membership of the EU. I find people who screech racist unnecessarily are usually just trying to close down debate - which is even more reason to ignore them

Limer
The German far right are going to love this. Does Merkel really want blood on the streets of her country? ISIS certainly do, so it's playing right into their hands

It seems so, and she's paying handsomely for the privilege. We're chipping in another £500million to fund this fiasco

It will be an even bigger disaster than the current migrant crisis

well yes, esp as Turkey is cracking down on freedoms, and becoming more hard line islamist, we may as well add turks to list of asylum seekers, how does this make eu better off?

MouseinanHole

Stop bloody scare mongering

Nobody's scare-mongering. We are discussing a deal that has been brokered between Turkey and the EU that fast-tracks EU membership and gives Turks additional rights to travel within the EU.

I am hoping it is possible to discuss this issue which will affect us as EU members without being told that the discussion is 'horrible' .

VertigoNun

It was rather shocking to see Merkel standing on a platform with unelected EU staff - Junckers and Tusk announcing that she was accepting the terms of Turkey's latest blackmail that involves the trade of human lives and vast amounts of money, while the Turkish PM watched on smiling.

If this is an example of how the EU does business, it'a a shameful organisation I have no wish to to be part of.

Send those who entered Europe illegally back to Turkey and put them to the end of the list, send a law abiding refugee in their place to Europe

I don't think the deal covers the migrants who have already arrived. the news is sketchy but it appears it covers only migrants arriving from some date next week when all members states have agreed the deal.

Yes, there will be horrific scenes across Macedonia, Greece and its islands as people will be forced onto boats and sent to Turkey, a country the UN has already stated is not a place of refuge due to the unlikeliness of being granted asylum. We won't see those scenes though as the world's media will be kept well away.

Mouse that's nice but my Turkish friends have cancelled their plans to retire there because of the way things are heading under Erdogan so maybe they're "scaremongering" too.. I've visited Turkey many times and feel very sorry for the educated secular people who are seeing their country slide into Islamist dictatorship.

I can't believe this insanity is happening. I'm terrified. And people are sleepwaking into it. Only today someone on my FB page was going on about what a wonderful humanitarian that despicable slimeball Peter Sutherland is, as if his relentless drive to import more unskilled migrants into Europe is from the goodness of his heart rather than his vision of turning the continent into a giant poverty stricken war-torn favela for him and his Goldman Sachs mates to occasionally glimpse from their gated mansions.

Me deal. Vote out . What utter chaos

I also have to add that I encountered terrible and constant sexual harassment there as a young woman, from catcalling and obscene gestures in the street to groping on the bus to having to jump out of a taxi because the driver tried to molest me. The prospect of more of this shit behaviour towards women being imported into Europe doesn't fill me with joy.

his relentless drive to import more unskilled migrants into Europe is from the goodness of his heart rather than his vision of turning the continent into a giant poverty stricken war-torn favela for him and his Goldman Sachs mates to occasionally glimpse from their gated mansions

^^ this

does anyone even trust turkey to do anything because I dont.

it has another agenda.