Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan made a diplomatic snub of The EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that gave headline writers something to label "Sofagate," in which European Concil President Charles Michel was given distintly privelged seating for an official photo-op and Von der Leyen was visibly snubbed.
It was diplomatic mischief on Erdoğan's part. But there is also reason to think that Michel was happüy to go along with it, because it was the EU Council that handled the diplomatic protocol in the meeting preparations. The Commission and the Council are both executive bodies of the EU. But the Commission is generally seen as representing more the EU institutions, while the Council is set up more as a body representing the member states as such. The protocol explanation for the Sofagate setup was that Michel was treated as a head of state and Von der Leyen as head of government, the implication being that the Commission President was higher representative of the EU than the Council President, which scored a point for Michel and the Commission in internal EU politics. (Sylvia Wörgetter, Welche Rolle spielte EU-Ratspräsident Michel?Oberösterreichische Nachrichten 10.04.2021)
Former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker kinda-sorta agreed with the protocol point about the Council President being the senior official while adding: "'I think it would have been better to have her sitting at the same level' as Michel, 'but from a protocol point of view the president of the Council is No. 1.”" (Lily Bayer, Juncker tries to take the sting out of Sofagate Politico EU 04/07/2021)
But Erdoğan was no doubt happy to be seen snubbing a senior woman official of the EU.
In the previous post, I talked about the centrality of the 2016 refugee agreement in EU-Turkey relations. Gerald Knaus, head of the think tank European Stability Initiative (ESI) and an immigration activist, was one of the main players in putting together the 2016 deal. Broadkly speaking, the deal involved Turkey holding refugees, largely coming from Syria, in Turkey. The agreement assumed that Turkey would allow a certain number of refugees to come to the EU after having their asylum requests processed in Turkey. For asylum-seekers that fled to Greece, Turkey would be accept them back. In turn, Turkey would then be able to send an equal number of additional approved ssylum applicants to the EU. The idea was that the EU would regularly absorb a certain number of refugees from Turkey. And the facilities for the refugees in Turkey would be financed by the EU. The arrangement was designed to reduce the need for desperate refugees to undertake highly risky sea crossings to be able to seek asylum in the EU.
The basic assumptions of the deal were resonable. As Knaus wrote in Welche Grenzen brauchen wir? (2020):
Andere Kritiker erklärten, es sei absurd zu erwarten, dass Flüchtlinge und Asylsuchende in der Türkei sicher seien. Dabei leben in der Türkei nun bereits seit vielen Jahren Millionen Flüchtlinge, gehen Hunderttausende syrische Kinder in türkische Schulen. Die Türkei hat zudem eine lange Tradition, Asylsuchenden - darunter auch Afghanen - Aufenthalt zu gewahren, während der UNHCR Asylverfahren durchführte und Neuansiedlungen organisierte. Es sollte darum gehen, das türkische System durch Anreize und Unterstützung zu verbessern, zum Wohl von Schutzbedürftigen.But, as he also explains in that book and elsewhere, the processing of asylum seekers has not gone as planned. In Knaus' view, Greek officials with the approval of EU officials have failed to process asylum-seekers at a reasonable pace. Knaus believes it's a deliberate strategy of scaring refugees away from trying to head toward Europe. (See p. 196 in his book)
[{Some} critics said it was absurd to expect refugees and asylum seekers to be safe in Turkey. {But} millions of refugees have been living in Turkey for many years now, and hundreds of thousands of Syrian children are going to Turkish schools. Turkey has a long tradition of keeping asylum seekers - including Afghans - resident, while the UNHCR asylum procedures are carried out and resettlement organized. It should be about improving the Turkish system through incentives and support, for the benefit of those needing protection.]
As the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (Fünf Jahre Flüchtlingsdeal: Brüssel versucht einen Neustart mit Erdogan 20.03.2021) puts it:
Kernpunkt des Deals ist, dass die Türkei jeden Migranten, der irregulär auf die griechischen Inseln gelangt und keinen Anspruch auf Asyl hat, zurücknimmt. Im Gegenzug nimmt die EU für jeden rückgeführten Syrer einen anderen Syrer aus der Türkei auf. Für die Flüchtlingsbetreuung soll die Türkei wiederum mit bis zu sechs Milliarden Euro von der EU unterstützt werden.As of last September, the UN refugee agency put the number of refugees in Syria at 3.6 million.
Die Rückführung irregulär eingereister Migranten in die Türkei funktioniert jedoch kaum. Seit 2016 schickte die EU insgesamt nur rund 2740 Menschen zurück in die Türkei, wie die EU-Kommission mitteilte. Das liegt jedoch nicht an der Türkei, sondern daran, dass Griechenland teils massiv überfordert mit der Bearbeitung der Asylanträge war und ist.
Asylsuchende auf griechischen Inseln müssen monatelang, teilweise über ein Jahr, auf einen Ersttermin bei den Behörden warten. Viele von ihnen sitzen mehrere Jahre in den oft als menschenunwürdig kritisierten Camps, bis ihr Verfahren abgeschlossen wird. Immer wieder wurde der griechischen Regierung vorgeworfen, dieses Szenario bewusst zu provozieren, um damit möglichst viele Flüchtlinge abzuschrecken.
Umgekehrt nahmen EU-Staaten bisher 28.621 Migranten aus der Türkei auf – deutlich weniger als im Abkommen 2016 in Aussicht gestellt. Mit Beginn der Corona-Pandemie wurde der Mechanismus überhaupt ausgesetzt.
[The key point of the deal is that Turkey will take back any migrant who reaches the Greek islands irregularly and is not entitled to asylum. In return, the EU accepts another Syrian from Turkey for every Syrian repatriated. Turkey is to receive up to €6 billion in EU support for care of the refugees.
However, the repatriation of irregular migrants to Turkey hardly works. Since 2016, the EU has sent a total of only around 2,740 people back to Turkey, according to the EU Commission. However, this is not due to Turkey, but to the fact that Greece has been, and still is, massively overwhelmed with the processing of asylum applications.
Asylum seekers on Greek islands have to wait months, sometimes more than a year, for a first appointment with the authorities. Many of them sit in the camps, which are often criticized as inhumane, for several years until their trial is completed. Time and again, the Greek government has been accused of deliberately provoking this scenario in order to deter as many refugees as possible.
EU states have so far taken in 28,621 migrants from Turkey – significantly fewer than the 2016 agreement promised. With the onset of the corona pandemic, the mechanism was suspended completely.
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