EU-Turkey agreement: Michel (European Council), “the meeting with Erdogan, an opportunity to explain our positions” and the problems to be solved yet

It was an “important opportunity to exchange our views” about the enforcement of the EU-Turkey agreement on migration. It was Charles Michel, president of the European Council, who relayed what happened during the talks with the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdoğan, who was in Brussels yesterday to have meetings with the leaders of NATO, the European Commission and the European Council. The EU “tried to explain a number of positions, interpretations, comments”, and, above all, to “show how the EU fulfilled its financial obligations, the promise to mobilise a total of 6 billion euros to support refugees in Turkey”, mainly explaining the difference between “delivering” in terms of concrete and effective projects and “mobilising”. Turkey was also reminded of “the responsibility it undertook for taking care of migrants on Turkish soil”. However, “different” opinions remain, and problems are yet to be solved about the enforcement of such agreement: that’s why the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, and the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs will work “to make sure we have the same understanding of what we do”. Erdogan and Michel also talked about Syria. In particular, Michel expressed his “great humanitarian concern for the situation in Idlib, as well as at the Turkey-Syria border”. In a nutshell, the meeting – as Michel said himself – was “a first step to achieve a more substantial political dialogue with Turkey in the short-, medium- and long-term”.
Valentina Bombelli