Turkey ramps up demands to help EU on migrant crisis

BRUSSELS — Turkey ratcheted up its demands for helping the European Union with the migrant crisis at a high-stakes summit in Brussels on Monday, seeking an extra 3 billion euros in aid in return for its urgent cooperation.

Ankara is also haggling for a refugee swap under which the 28-nation EU would resettle one Syrian refugee from Turkey in exchange for every Syrian refugee that Turkey takes back from the overstretched Greek islands.

Under the last-minute proposals tabled by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the bloc would also bring forward visa-free travel for Turks to June, and speed up the country's long-stalled EU membership bid.

The EU is paying an increasingly high price to secure Turkey's help in dealing with the biggest migration crisis since World War II, but has little choice as Turkey is the main launching point for refugees and migrants crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece.

In Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticised the EU for a four-month delay in disbursing an original 3 billion euros in aid for 2016-17 under a deal agreed in November.

"It has been four months. They are yet to deliver," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara. "Mr prime minister is currently in Brussels. I hope he will return with the money."

Erdogan has previously threatened to "flood" the EU with migrants.

'New proposal'

But Davutoglu took a softer tone.

"Turkey has been very generous in receiving 2.7 million refugees but many are trying to leave for Europe. Therefore before coming here we worked on a new package of proposals," Davutoglu told reporters after talks with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels during a break in the summit.

"With this new proposal our objective is to rescue the lives of the refugees, to discourage those who want to misuse and exploit the desperate situation of the refugees, meaning human smugglers, and to have a new era in EU Turkey relations."

More than 1 million refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe since the start of 2015 — the majority fleeing the war in Syria — with nearly 4,000 dying while crossing the Mediterranean.

But the issue has divided the 28-nation EU more than any other crisis in its history, exposing deep faultlines over money, immigration and nationalism and leaving it desperate for a solution.

European Parliament head Martin Schulz confirmed Turkey's demand for an extra 3 billion for 2018 on top of the 2016-17 money, saying it "will require additional [EU] budgetary procedures".

One EU diplomat told AFP Turkey was proposing "a potential gamechanger" where it will take back not only irregular economic migrants who have reached the Greek islands but also those from Syria deemed genuine refugees.

"In return, we have said for every Syrian they take back, we will resettle one Syrian" from camps in Turkey, where 2.7 million Syrian refugees are living, the diplomat added.

Turkey would also see visa-free travel brought forward to June if Ankara commits to immediately bringing into force the deal to readmit illegal migrants sent back from the Greek islands.

"Everybody recognises it's a very strong proposal, very rich," another EU official said.

The summit comes after EU President Donald Tusk tried to find consensus last week on a tour to Greece, the Balkans and Turkey.

But the EU was still struggling with bitter divisions at the summit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker insisted on Monday that a mention of closing the main Balkans route for migrants be dropped from a proposed final summit statement.

Merkel is facing pressure at home over her open-door policy towards refugees, which has been blamed by many countries for flooding the Balkans corridor in the first place.

The West Balkans route is the main path for migrants to get from Greece to wealthy Germany and Scandinavia.

But Austria last month abruptly capped the number of asylum seekers it would accept, triggering a domino effect of border restrictions along the Balkans that has trapped tens of thousands of desperate migrants on the border between Greece and non-EU the former Yugoslav Republic of  Macedonia.

Brussels sees curbing the flow of migrants as part of a plan to restore by the end of the year the full functioning of Europe's cherished passport-free Schengen zone after the series of border closures.