Refugees Daily - Internal Global Press Review

A new era of EU-Turkey co-operation to tackle the refugee crisis got off to a shaky start on Thursday as bloc members demanded more evidence of Ankara's assistance before agreeing to support a resettlement scheme.

The German-backed scheme — unveiled by the European Commission this week — was originally envisioned as a way to move some of the 2.5m refugees currently in Turkey to Europe. The hope was that this would help to convince people to stop attempting the treacherous crossing to Greece and through the western Balkans.

But 11 EU governments refused to sign off on the programme during a meeting with the Turkish prime minister on the sidelines of a Brussels summit on Thursday.

According to officials who attended the meeting, hosted by Werner Faymann, the Austrian chancellor — which included the German chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek premier Alexis Tsipras — several of the leaders made clear that a reduction in the flow of people heading from Turkey to Greece was necessary before a resettlement scheme could go ahead.

"We cannot make decisions before the security of the borders is functional," said Mr Faymann, who called the meeting "intense".

The resettlement plan had already been at risk of being drastically scaled back, with the UN refugee agencyUNHCR — which would oversee the scheme — warning the EU that it had the capacity to transfer only about 80,000 refugees. That is well short of the 500,000 figure privately floated by some diplomats.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president who attended Thursday's session, had pushed hard for leaders to sign on to the scheme, which is seen as a key element of a deal between the EU and Turkey. This would see Ankara work to stem the influx in exchange for &;3bn in EU aid and a re-ignition of Turkey's application for membership of the bloc.

According to suggested "draft conclusions" prepared by Mr Juncker's staff for the meeting and seen by the Financial Times, the leaders were urged by Brussels to agree to "participate in the voluntary humanitarian admission scheme". But no such agreement was reached.

Instead, the Netherlands — which will take over the EU's rotating presidency in January — was asked to determine "the best mechanism" for the resettlement of some of Turkey's 2.5m refugees early next year, according to EU officials. The scheme would remain voluntary.

The resettlement scheme is the latest in a series of efforts by the EU to grapple with the refugee crisis.

Although national capitals agreed a host of measures aimed at coping with the 1.2m asylum claims so far this year, hardly any have actually been carried out, according to a report circulated to all 28 EU countries on Thursday by Luxembourg, the current holder of the EU presidency.

An EU-wide scheme to relocate 160,000 refugees from frontline countries has so far resulted in only 208 people actually being moved.

National capitals have put forward a fraction of the required places, while many refugees are "reluctant to be relocated to most member states", according to the report.