Europe’s leading human rights body has issued a stinging indictment of the EU’s refugee deal with Turkey, which it said at worst exceeds the limits of what is permissible under international law.
A report from the Council of Europe’s assembly listed numerous concerns on human rights, from keeping migrants in overcrowded and insanitary detention centres on the Greek islands to inadequate legal protection for people seeking to appeal against rejection of an asylum claim.
The report also condemned Europe’s “shamefully slow” progress on relocating refugees from Greece to other countries. Only 937 out of a promised 160,000 had been found homes as of March.
The EU-Turkey agreement “at best strains and at worst exceeds the limits of what is permissible under European and international law”, states the report by the Dutch parliamentarian Tineke Strik.
“Even on paper, it raises many serious questions of compatibility with basic norms on refugees’ and migrants’ rights. It has so far given every indication of being even more problematic in practice.”
The EU has faced a barrage of criticism about the bargain it struck with Turkey at a summit in March. Turkey, already hosting 3.1 million refugees, agreed to take back irregular migrants from Europe, in exchange for an end to visa restrictions, as well as progress on EU accession talks. European leaders also promised to resettle up to 72,000 Syrian refugees living in Turkey and provide €3bn (£2.3bn) in humanitarian funding.
The European commission brushed aside the latest criticism as it published its first assessment of the EU-Turkey deal, which came into force one month ago.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner in charge of migration, said the situation in Greece had improved and claimed the Council of Europe was “fully supportive” of EU policy.
He insisted no refugees were being sent back from Turkey to Syria, dismissing on-the-ground reports from Amnesty International that the European parliament wants investigated.
Some MEPs fear the deal risks tarnishing Europe’s moral authority further if EU officials fudge security and technical standards to meet Turkey’s demand of visa-free travel for its 79 million citizens by June.
Gaining visa-free access to the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone is one of the most valuable points for Turkey, but numerous hurdles have to be cleared. In the last two years, Ankara has met more than half of 72 EU benchmarks, including introducing security chips in passports, stepping up border controls and outlawing discrimination against minority groups.
Turkey has just 10 days to fulfil the remaining criteria if the EU is to grant visa-free travel by June.
Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, warned on Monday he might tear up the deal if the EU failed to deliver on visa-free travel. “I maintain my belief that, God willing, we will have the visa exemption in June. In the absence of that, then of course no one can expect Turkey to adhere to its commitments,” he said.
The European parliament and EU member states will have the final word on visa-free travel for Turkey, with a decision expected around the time of the UK’s EU referendum. Although Turkish citizens would not gain visa-free access to Britain, which is outside Schengen, the issue has already been seized on by Brexit campaigners.
The commission insists it will not offer any shortcuts to visa-free travel, although some MEPs are less convinced.
Kati Piri, a Dutch MEP on the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said the EU must not lower standards on the visa requirements in the haste to strike a deal.
Visa-free travel in the Schengen zone “has to be based on objective criteria and not on the fact that Turkey is threatening to blow up this deal if we don’t give this now”, she said. A supporter of visa-free travel for Turks, she said the current “highly political process” could “lead to disappointment for both sides”.
The MEP said the EU’s desperation to strike a deal with Turkey had given Ankara the impression it was beyond reproach.
Last week the European parliament passed a motion criticising the Turkish government for “significant backsliding” on freedom of expression and assembly in locking up journalists and closing down newspapers.
For now, Brussels officials are content to hail the deal as a success, citing a sharp fall in people arriving on the Greek islands.
Around 3,500 people arrived on the Greek islands in the final 11 days of March, compared with 22,900 who came during the first part of the month before the deal was in force.
The EU border agency Frontex said fewer than 100 people a day were arriving on the Greek islands in early April, compared with around 2,000 a day at the start of the year.
But rapid implementation has not been obvious on the EU side. So far only 103 Syrians out of the possible 72,000 have been resettled from Turkey into Europe under the one-for-one scheme. Only €187m of the EU’s €3bn humanitarian aid cheque has been distributed.
“This is not the large-scale resettlement that the Turkish people are hoping for” and the “money is taking a long time to be disbursed”, said Piri.
“People in Turkey are not silly; they see it is not a genuine commitment to Turkey and born out of necessity.”
Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the deal had another value for Turkey. “For the longest time the Turkish government had been frozen out; for five or six years [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan had not been invited to Brussels and had a very tense relationship with the US.
“All of a sudden that is secondary – I don’t want to say it is forgotten – but once again Turkey has a seat at the European table.
“That is the main value for the government in Ankara, a perceived sense of legitimacy on the international platform.”