ANKARA: Ankara has called on Brussels to take the necessary steps to fulfill the remaining parts of the Turkey-EU March 18 Agreement.
Addressing a ceremony to appoint new judges and prosecutors in Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Monday that Turkey will ask the EU to keep its promise of over three billion euros in aid for Syrian refugees at the summit in Bulgarian port city of Varna next week.
“The promises given to us have not been delivered. They promised the right for visa-free travel, they did not keep it. They promised 3 + 3 billion euros in aid. So far, the aid that has gone into our vault is 850 million euros,” Erdoğan said, saying many institutions are being brought into the equation to make it difficult for the money to be used by the Turkish side.
Turkey and the EU signed an agreement on March 18, 2016, to stem the influx of refugees to Europe. Turkey has been a main route for refugees trying to cross into Europe since the beginning of the civil war in Syria. With the agreement, irregular arrivals decreased by 99 percent, saving the lives of many of those who would have attempted the treacherous journey by sea.
The EU gave Turkey a list of 72 criteria to fulfill for visa-free travel for Turkish nationals after the two sides signed an agreement in March 2016. The 28 EU member states and European Parliament must approve the visa scheme. The EU has said that Turkey has completed 65 of the listed criteria, but needs to change its terrorism laws and make the necessary regulations concerning the independence of Turkey’s Data Protection Board.
“There are seven remaining benchmarks, and five of them can easily be met,” EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos told a group of Turkish journalists in Brussels on Dec. 6, 2017.
