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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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Turkey has come to be an increasingly unreliable
partner, actually generating a large number of
refugees itself. In fact, the agreement is being
implemented at a time when Turkey is taking
significant steps backwards in the area of the
rule of law, human rights guarantees and pro-
tection for minorities, thus returning to authori-
tarianism.
Yet even before this, a key requirement for
the deal had been called into question: recogni-
tion of Turkey as a “safe third country”. Although
Turkey recognises the 1967 Protocol Relating to
the Status of Refugees, it maintains a geograph-
ical limitation, only applying the convention to
refugees from Council of Europe member states.
This means that 95 per cent of Syrians are only
granted “guest” status, and enjoy only tempo-
rary protection. So far, the only refugees re-
turned under the EU-Turkey Statement have
been those who did not apply for asylum in
Greece, retracted their application or had their
application rejected. Nonetheless, human rights
organisations have made serious allegations
about the treatment of refugees and migrants in
Turkey. They claim that refugees’ right to non-
refoulement is often not considered, they often
have no way to access a fair and efficient asylum
process and get confirmation of their status, and
they have no prompt access to a lasting solution,
such as return, integration or resettlement.
There have been documented cases of arbitrary
arrest, and refusal of access to legal support and
specialist medical treatment, and refugees’ over-
all access to healthcare, education and the la-
bour market is often said to be precarious.
Despite this criticism of the EU-Turkey
Statement and its implementation up to now,
the EU aims to use it as a model for further sim-
ilar agreements with countries in the Middle
East and North Africa. This applies particularly in
the event that migration movements return
from the Aegean/Balkan route to the Central
Mediterranean route, often involving transit
through Sudan or Morocco. In terms of the con-
ditions relating to human and refugee rights to
be required by EU refugee policy, the central
question is under which conditions the European
Union and third countries can enter into agree-
ments like the “Turkey deal”, and above all
which standards should be observed in collabo-
rations with third countries.
In view of the disastrous human rights re-
cords of the main North African transit coun-
tries, Libya and Egypt, it seems unlikely that they
could be classed as safe third countries. Asylum
applications from people coming from these
countries can simply not be classified as “mani-
festly unfounded”. One cannot assume that
European standards, which even many member
states fail to implement, can be imposed imme-
diately on third countries. However, the
European Union must be guided by the follow-
ing principle: When it collaborates with third
countries, it must encourage them to observe
the highest possible standards for protection
and processes, and it must continuously moni-
tor these itself.
The EU can achieve this through training
measures, liaison officers, and human rights
monitoring instruments hitherto little used in
this policy area. It is possible to monitor the pro-
tection of human and refugee rights standards
by compiling existing monitoring instruments
such as country reports, intelligence gathering
documents and reports from EU agencies, and
by drafting recommendations through dialogue
with the third countries. In this way partner
countries can always be bound to common
principles and their standards can be compared
to those established in the 1951 Refugee
Convention, the European Convention on
Human Rights (ECHR) and the Common