Quelle: The Guardian
Turkish president will extract high price for agreeing to proposals to tighten up Europe’s borders hatched by Germany and the EC
EU leaders have pleaded with Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to join forces behind a radical plan aimed at stemming the flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants to Europe.
The Europeans are offering eventually to take half a million Syrians from new refugee and asylum-processing camps they would co-fund in Turkey in return for Ankara tightening its borders to stop people being smuggled in hazardous vessels to Greece, and agreeing to take back migrants who make it “illegally” to Europe via Turkey.
As part of any possible pact, Erdoğan pressed for a relaxation in visa requirements for Turks travelling to Europe. He also wants the EU to list Turkey as “a safe third country”, effectively whitewashing Ankara’s increasingly repressive policies and deteriorating human rights and media freedoms record.