Migrants most useful to Erdoğan

« We can open the doors to Greece and Bul­gar­ia for the refugees and put them on buses. »

This is what Erdoğan answered the Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion dur­ing a meet­ing in Ankara on Novem­ber 16 2015. The report leaked and was then pub­lished by the Greek web­site Euro2Day. Con­tact­ed by the Tele­graph, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion did not authen­ti­cate the doc­u­ment but did not deny the transcript.

This provoca­tive sen­tence by the Turk­ish pres­i­dent was in the con­text of talks with Jean-Claude Junck­er and Don­ald Tusk, Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil, for a Euro­pean finan­cial aid pack­age to Turkey so that it would con­tain the flood of migrants enter­ing the Schen­gen space.

Accord­ing to the doc­u­ment, the Turk­ish pres­i­dent hopes for 6 bil­lion euros while the ini­tial pro­pos­al is for 3 bil­lion. Erdoğan then uses the migrants as lever­age to force EU lead­ers to raise the final amount in the agreement.

Erdoğan says :

« The EU will have to face more than a dead child on the Turk­ish coasts. There will be 10.000 or 15.000. How will you han­dle that ? »

The Turk­ish pres­i­dent also takes advan­tage of this lever­age to table again the ques­tion of Turkey’s mem­ber­ship in the Euro­pean Union and the lift­ing of the visa require­ment for Turks enter­ing Europe.

The agree­ment is final­ly signed on Novem­ber 29 2015 for 3 bil­lion euros 500 mil­lion of which flow direct­ly from the Euro­pean bud­get, the rest being pro­vid­ed by mem­ber states. The three page doc­u­ment is brief and basic and con­tains no spe­cif­ic direc­tives con­cern­ing the use of these funds.

Less than two months after the agree­ment and despite Turkey’s com­mit­ment to stop­ping the migra­to­ry flow, it remains « too high » accord­ing to Frans Tim­mer­mans, Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Commission.

Erdoğan and his party aided by the European Union

The oth­er very inter­est­ing point in this report is Junck­er con­fir­ma­tion that pub­li­ca­tion of the 2015 report con­cern­ing Turkey’s mem­ber­ship in the EU was delayed so it would not inter­fere with the Turk­ish leg­isla­tive elections.

Junck­er says :

« The progress report was delayed at Erdoğan’s request. »

This rather neg­a­tive report men­tions the many Turk­ish breach­es to fun­da­men­tal lib­er­ties and takes the form of an offi­cial denun­ci­a­tion of the government’s lib­er­ti­ci­dal drift. Only the most extreme of bad faiths would deny the impact such a report could have had on the AKP’s results (Erdoğan’s islamo-con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty) had it been pub­lished before the election.

This serves as con­fir­ma­tion of the con­nivance between the Euro­pean big­wigs and the Turk­ish pres­i­dent. Junck­er and his col­leagues demon­strate a will to main­tain good rela­tions with Erdoğan who thus forges an absurd sword of Damo­cles with the threat of a migra­to­ry invasion.

Mar­ti Blancho 

Click on images to enlarge 
UE Erdogan, leak accord 1 UE Erdogan, leak accord 2 UE Erdogan, leak accord 03

Trans­la­tion by Renée Lucie Bourges
iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com
In French: Erdoğan utilise les migrants pour négoci­er avec l’UE

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