The EU-Turkey Deal: One Step Toward Resolving of the Migrant Crisis

        Recently, the European Union passed a controversial deal in early April mandating that Greece begin to deport migrants who have not applied for asylum. This process of deportation began last week, when three boats carrying 202 people in total departed the Greek Islands of Lesbos and Chios for the Turkish coast. The migrants on these three boats, the majority of whom were originally from Pakistan, had never applied for asylum and were, thus, being forced to leave the country. This deal included an agreement that Turkey will resettle one pre-vetted refugee into the EU for every refugee it accepts from Greece. In addition, the EU has agreed to give both Turkey and Greece millions of Euros in funding for their help in resolving the migrant crisis and relocating refugees. 

        In 2015, more than one million refugees migrated to Europe as a result of the ongoing refugee crisis, which has displaced an immense number of people from the Middle East and other regions. These refugees, most of whom travel to Europe by either sea or land, are fleeing their home countries due to an increasing presence of terror and violence. While the majority of these refugees are traveling from Syria, a great number are also emigrating from nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Eritrea, Albania, and Pakistan. 

  For some time, the European Union, as well as the citizens of European nations, have struggled to deal with this continuous stream of migrants looking for asylum. While a number of countries, such as Germany and France, have been highly accepting of refugees, others, like Hungary, have opted to turn migrants away and even prosecute those entering the country illegally. Since the beginning of the refugee crisis, politicians and world leaders both at home and abroad, have attempted to resolve the issue, yet it seems as if the stream of refugees will never cease.

       

        This recent plan represents a course of action being taken by the EU in order to curb the mass migration of refugees to Europe that has taken place over the past few years. It has proven to be difficult for European nations to regulate this mass migration of refugees, yet they have, in recent months, begun an effort to ease the stream of migrants. In order to accomplish this, the EU has begun to strengthen border security between certain European nations and implement the deportation of refugees without applications for asylum. This action is, in part, an attempt to resolve this crisis, but it is also a decision which is encouraging migrants to travel to the EU through legal means, such as the asylum process. 
        These new actions passed by the EU have proven to be successful recently. In the first few months of 2016, the number of migrants crossing between Turkey and Bulgaria decreased by twenty percent from that of last year. Many leaders and migration analysts, though, have expressed doubts regarding this new plan, believing that it may even increase migration across European borders. This, as well as a number of other factors, have contributed to the controversial nature of this deal. 
        Two aspects of its controversiality lay in the methods Greece is using in order to deport refugees and the ways in which Turkey is deciding to accept them. The refugees leaving Greece, most of whom live in filthy conditions, have traveled great distances in order to reach the safety of the EU; these people are then sent back across the Aegean Sea to the place they risked their lives to get away from. In a broader sense, some claim that this deal violates principles of International Law which dictate the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers; this argument asserts that these refugees who are living in Greece have the right of protection from being pushed back across a border (or a sea). Lastly, some claim that this deal will force migrants wishing to travel to Europe to take even more dangerous routes in order to get there. In total, the recent EU-Turkey deal may not be a perfect solution, yet it is, nonetheless, one step toward a resolution of one of the largest mass migrations the world has ever witnessed.