Earlier the German Minister also said that his country is ready to take 25% of all migrants who arrive in Europe by boat after crossing the Mediterranean. This statement, though sparked criticism among his party members - Bavaria’s Christian Social Union and their partners the Christian Democrats.
The statements come amid Seehofer’s trip to Turkey and Greece last week to discuss ways on how to tackle the refugee influx.
Dr. Danai Angeli, a human rights lawyer and member of the Athens Bar Association specializing in asylum and migration believes that this isn’t really a long-term solution to the refugee issue.
“Unfortunately, every year these cross-border movements exact a devastating toll on human life, both by land and by sea. [...] Accepting a quarter of asylum seekers rescued along a specific sea route can provide some relief, but it does not resolve the much bigger issue of defining the international obligations of states to respond to and prevent these tragedies, in clear terms, and in ways which respect human rights,” the lawyer explained.
In his turn, Metin Corabatir, president of the Ankara-based Research Center on Asylum and Migration and a former spokesman for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Turkey, noted that it depends on what asylum seekers the German official was referring to:
“If he means those who would be rescued at sea while attempting to cross to Greece, it does not look logical. It appears that he [Seehofer] negotiated with Turkish counterparts a kind of humanitarian evacuation as happened during the Kosovo crisis in 1997, and offered to receive a quarter of new arrivals to Europe to lower the burden on Turkey's shoulders.
The Turkish migration expert says that this “burden-sharing gesture” won’t work without extra cash assistance for those refugees who would not be resettled to Europe or Germany.
There’s been a sharp increase in refugee arrivals to Greece. According to UN figures, over 10,000 migrants arrived at the Greek islands in September.
“Given that Greece acts primarily as an entry point to Europe, it is very likely that secondary movements towards other EU member states including Germany, the main destination country, are going to increase,” Dr. Angeli warned.
“The exact causes prompting a spike in arrivals in a country can be complex. However, the available UNHCR statistics demonstrate that the majority among those newly arrived in Greece are from Afghanistan, Syrian and the Republic of Congo, which allows us to assume that the search for safety remains a significant driving factor behind these crossings,” the Greek human rights lawyer added.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also called on Europe to share the refugee burden or face a new wave of migrants.
Turkey is now preparing an operation in northern Syria against the Syrian Kurdish militia after the US announced that it's pulling its troops out of the border area where Turkey plans to set up a “safe zone”. The White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement on Sunday that “the United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation.”
Ankara has proposed to resettle between 2 to 3 million Syrian refugees in the “safe zone”.
Fighting has also intensified in the last rebel stronghold - Idlib. It is controlled by radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and in the last months, the Syrian-government offensive has led to hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing the violence in the region.
Mr. Corabatir believes that the recent developments in Idlib raise concerns.
“Turkey has been hosting more than four million refugees, 3.6 million of them are registered Syrians. This means that Turkey's absorption capacity has long reached its limits. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently announced that hundreds of civilians have been killed or injured (in Idlib, Syria) due to the airstrikes and shelling that have been going on since 1 May 2019. This has resulted in the displacement of almost 630,000 people who have fled their homes to escape from violence and to reach essential services that they need to survive. In this case, a new wave from Idlib to Turkey would cause a new influx from Turkey to Greece as it happened in 2015.”
President Erdogan has said that his country has spent over $40 billion on Syrian refugees already. In 2016, the EU agreed to provide Turkey a financial aid package of 6 billion euros for the care of Syrian refugees in the country and to stop migrants from reaching Greece.
The former spokesman for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Turkey said that Ankara remains committed to the 2016 EU-Turkey agreement, but more money will be required:
“The 3+3 billion euro cash assistance played a stabilizing effect on the conditions of refugees in Turkey. Certain services such as education, vocational training, etc., have been improved, and 1.6 million Syrian refugees receive cash assistance to cover some of their living costs. [...] A new package of cash assistance will definitely be required to make life tolerable for millions of refugees in the coming years,” Corabatir noted.
But if there’s a new influx of millions of refugees from Idlib this kind of scenario won’t work anymore: “What seems to be an alternative for both Turkey and the EU in such a situation to think about the “internal flight/relocation Alternative” concept. This is implemented by all EU member countries in individual status determination processes and it is in the EC Qualifications Directive 2004/983. UNHCR has also issued a guideline on this,” he said.
Dr. Angeli, in turn, pointed out that only international cooperation will be able to prevent these dangerous migrant journeys across the Mediterranean sea:
“A comprehensive framework to ensure an equitable sharing of responsibility for hosting refugees and provide safe and appropriate pathways to those seeking safety and protection,” is the right path according to the human rights lawyer.
“EU policies aimed at indiscriminately halting irregular crossings, for instance by tightening border controls or channeling financial assistance to the host society are unlikely to prove effective because they don’t take adequate account of the multitude of factors that drive refugees, migrants and their families to make such desperate journeys,” Dr. Angeli concluded.
The views and opinions expressed by the contributors do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
