EU tries for new Turkey strategy to stem refugee flow

Turkey’s president derided Europe on Friday for not taking in more refugees - a dose of cold water for a European Union plan to give new aid and concessions to Turkey in exchange for stemming the unprecedented flow of people across borders. 

EU leaders meeting at a summit in Brussels into the early hours of Friday agreed to give “political support” for an action plan for Turkey to help it manage its refugee emergency, including easier access to EU visas and sped-up EU membership talks. The hard part, though, is persuading Turkey to sign <g data-gr-id="24">on,</g> and raising money to make it work. 

Diplomats said the EU package for Turkey could involve as much as 3 billion euros in aid. But EU members have been slow in offering money for the migrant crisis <g data-gr-id="22">overall,</g> and divided over how much to help migrants and how much to help Turkey. 

Discussions in Ankara will continue in coming days. In a speech on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not address the refugee deal but accused the EU of being insincere about Turkey’s membership. 

“We are far ahead of most EU countries but unfortunately, they are not sincere,” Erdogan said. 

He sustained his anti-western rhetoric, taking a jibe at those who suggested German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the Nobel Peace Prize for opening <g data-gr-id="20">Germany to</g> so many refugees this year. 

“We have 2.5 million refugees, no one cares,” Erdogan said. 

Turkey hosts more refugees than any other country in the world. Hundreds of thousands are housed in refugee <g data-gr-id="26">camps</g> but many more are left to fend for themselves, leading some people to try their luck on the arduous journey to Europe, which has seen some 600,000 new arrivals this year. 

After years of membership talks where the EU had the upper hand, now the EU is in a position of needing Turkey’s help to ease the refugee crisis. 

But EU leaders are concerned about authoritarian moves by Erdogan toward the Kurdish minority and the media and <g data-gr-id="23">justice</g> system. Erdogan’s government has been pushing for a long time for looser visa rules, and that would be a vote-getter for his party in Nov. 1 elections French President Francois Hollande said he “insisted that if there is a liberalization of visas with Turkey ... it should be on extremely specific, controlled terms.”