PM suggests EU’s ‘pushback’ to Turkey breaches international law

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has called out the EU over a “bad deal” to stop refugees outside the EU’s borders by paying Turkey to keep them out.

“The deal being offered to Turkey is a bad deal, but on the other hand, the alternative is nothing and a humanitarian crisis which nobody seems to know how to handle,” Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told Bloomberg News in Brussels.

The proposed deal would see all migrants travelling to Greece from Turkey being sent back in exchange for EU countries offering Turkey incentives such as aid and visa free access to Schengen countries.

Commenting on the somewhat controversial nature of the decision, “a decision which resembles Malta’s pushback policy, which had caused widespread scorn from the European commission,” Muscat said that “although inconvenient, this seems to be the only option open to the EU at this point.”

The programme would cost the EU some €6 billion, and that the decision was meant to assist refugees in Turkey, given the dire condition that camps are now in. Muscat said there were also large numbers of refugees fleeing to Jordan and Lebanon among others, who also required immediate assistance.

“We now have a draft agreement, which is quite an expensive one, which will not offer a solution, but it will offer some breathing space for both the EU and Turkey to address the migration crisis”

“The draft we have before us is borderline in breach of the UN Convention,” Muscat says, adding that he believes the agreement could be challenged in international courts.

Muscat said he would push for aid for other countries should they become a migrant route as a result of the Turkish route being blocked. “I will insist tonight that the concluding document must have a clear mention stating that the EU would be prepared to address any other crisis caused by new migration route opening as a result of the EU-Turkey deal.”

He said Malta, along with other countries was insisting on obtaining the same aid from the EU should other routes, such as the sea-crossing between Libya and Italy, reopen as a result of the blockage.

The prime minister said that any package that we will agree to will not be a package intended for Turkey, “but intended to help alleviate the
humanitarian crisis which is developing before us.”

PN Leader Simon Busuttil has also cautioned that an agreement with Turkey on migration could trigger a new migratory wave in the central Mediterranean region affecting Malta and Italy. 

Speaking at a summit meeting of EPP leaders ahead of the European Council meeting in Brussels, Busuttil warned that although it was a welcome prospect, the agreement with Turkey could cause further problems if the Turkey-Greece route is blocked.

“If anything, it would divert the route to another area, such as the central Mediterranean region, affecting other member states like Italy and Malta,” he said.

“It would lead to more people attempting the perilous journey from the Libyan coast and more people losing their lives in the Mediterranean,” he said, stressing that the EU must therefore be prepared now for any eventual influx along this route.

Busuttil added that the reopening of the Libyan route would complicate matters even further, given the fragile and unstable environment in the country.

“At least in Turkey we have an interlocutor, a government to talk to, but in Libya we do not even have that. Moreover, ISIS will be jumping on a new opportunity to make money out of smuggling people across the Mediterranean. We cannot let them gain from this,” Busuttil said. 

“Unless the root of the problem is addressed in Syria and in Libya alike, the problem will not go away,” he added. 

Other EPP leaders attending the summit meeting included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Council President Donald Tusk and the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker.