Inhuman agreement

Proposed EU-Turkey refugee deal is a travesty

The European Union's recent actions on the issue of West Asian refugees have not enhanced its humanitarian reputation. Last week's agreement with Turkey, which senior EU administrators describe as a "breakthrough", served to tarnish its image. This deal, outlined by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu - but steered surely by Turkey's increasingly dictatorial paramount leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan - involves an exchange programme under which EU would allow one Syrian from a Turkish refugee camp to be resettled in the Schengen zone for every refugee returned to Turkey from crisis-ridden Greece. In turn, the EU is to allow Turkish citizens visa-free travel through the zone, plus pay Turkey $6.6 billion for resettlement costs. Half this pay-out represents dues from the EU for resettling refugees till 2018; Mr Davutoglu's additional demand is under negotiation.

The broad contours of this quid-pro-quo deal suggest an overt cynicism not witnessed in Europe since the refugee crisis after World War II, when thousands of people in Displaced Person camps were forced back to authoritarian Eastern Europe. In effect, Turkey's EU membership - which has long been resisted by the EU - is being bartered against this century's largest humanitarian crisis. Ethical objections to a deal concerning more than three million people have come from the UN and Amnesty International and the liberal European media, all of whom have condemned it as horse-trading. But the nature of protests that have been raised by some EU politicians, especially in Germany and Austria, are particularly disturbing. They have criticised the deal not for its flagrant opportunism but because they oppose easier entry norms for Turks. The EU's visa-free regime for Balkan countries had led to an explosion of asylum applications from that troubled region, they argue, and the Turkish deal is bound to repeat the pattern.

Even if EU and Turkish negotiators ignored the question of principles, there are practical arguments against this deal. First, the business of selecting who stays and who goes is arbitrary enough to encourage institutionalised corruption that would surpass the practices of today's freelance refugee traders. Second, the EU deems resettling two or three million refugees an unacceptable burden in a region of 500 million people covering 4.3 million square km, and a per capita GDP of $36,000. It is hard to understand how Turkey can be expected to shoulder this same problem - indeed, it has already done so at considerable economic cost for the past five years - with a population of 78 million covering 780,000 square km and a per capita GDP of $10,500. Third, such an agreement closes options for those fleeing ISIS' brutalities and is unlikely to deter refugees from chancing their luck via illegal routes. After all, they are seeking not merely asylum but better livelihoods. It is hard to see them content to wait out their days in refugee camps, dependent on aid and charity. The plight of the Palestinians evicted from their lands after Israel's violent creation should be a salutary lesson. By bartering their humanism thus, the EU and Turkey may find themselves caught in a maelstrom of lawlessness and unrest entirely of their own making.