EU leaders are to meet to try to finalise a deal with Turkey to help ease the migrant crisis.<\/p>\n
European Council President Donald Tusk admits a “catalogue of issues” in the way of an agreement remains unresolved.<\/p>\n
The proposed plan would see all migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey sent back. For each Syrian returned, a Syrian in Turkey would be resettled in the EU.<\/p>\n
German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged EU member states to do more.<\/p>\n
“What Turkey has done for… some 2.7 million refugees can’t be praised highly enough,” she told Germany’s parliament on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
“Europe has not covered itself with glory in how, as a union of 28 members states with 500 million citizens, it has struggled with fairly sharing the burden.”<\/p>\n
Last year, more than a million people entered the EU illegally by boat, mainly going from Turkey to Greece.
\nMore than 132,000 migrants have arrived in Greece by boat so far this year – a large increase on the same period last year.<\/p>\n
No ‘cast-iron’ incentives<\/strong> At a meeting last week where the plan was initially proposed, EU leaders said that in return for action on the migrant crisis, visa-free travel to Europe for Turkish citizens would be available from June.<\/p>\n They also promised to speed up financial aid promised last year and to make a fresh push on talks over Turkey’s eventual membership of the EU.<\/p>\n However, in the latest draft of the deal the incentives being offered to the Turkish government appear to be far less cast-iron than Ankara would like, the BBC’s Chris Morris reports from Brussels.<\/p>\n There is no guarantee that Turkey’s EU membership bid will be speeded up – only a commitment to prepare for further negotiations as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Secondly, visa-free travel to the Schengen area for Turkish citizens by the end of June will depend on Turkey complying with all 72 conditions that the EU has set out.<\/p>\n Finally, there is no certainty that financial aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey will be doubled to \u20ac6bn (\u00a34.7bn) – only a promise to consider it, if the first tranche of money produces positive results.<\/p>\n In addition to these points of potential disagreement, there is continuing criticism of the legal basis for the idea of returning all irregular migrants from Greece to Turkey, our correspondent adds.<\/p>\n The Spanish foreign minister has said Spain will oppose the “blanket return” of refugees to Turkey.<\/p>\n Despite the obstacles, the head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said ahead of the Brussels summit that he was “cautiously optimistic” a deal could be reached.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to warn the summit of the possibility of a fresh wave of migrants coming to Europe from Libya this summer.<\/p>\n Although recent attention has been focused on migrants arriving in Greece, the sea route to Italy from Libya has also been a key route for migrants including refugees fleeing conflicts and oppression in Syria, Eritrea and other countries.<\/p>\n Libya has suffered from chronic instability and lawlessness since forces backed by Nato countries including the UK and France overthrew long-serving ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EU leaders are to meet to try to finalise a deal with Turkey to help ease the migrant crisis. European Council President Donald Tusk admits a “catalogue of issues” in the way of an agreement remains unresolved. The proposed plan would see all migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey sent back. For each Syrian returned, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe Brussels summit opens on Thursday and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is due to join talks on Friday.<\/p>\n