MICHAEL BURLEIGH: The EU’s migrant €6bn deal with Turkey’s despot isn’t just shabby – it’s terrifying
After
some political dust-up or another, David Cameron may occasionally wish
he could send riot police into the offices of the Daily Mail and have
the Editor dragged out.
Of
course, he would never be allowed such an appalling abuse of power, yet
that is exactly what another national leader — one with pretensions to
join the EU — has just done.
Last
Friday, an edict from the Turkish courts — with the blessing of the
all-powerful President Recep Erdogan — saw police storm into Turkey’s
biggest-selling daily paper and use tear gas as they rounded up the
staff.
Turkey's biggest-selling daily paper:
People run as riot police use tear gas and water cannons to disperse
people gathered in support outside the headquarters of Zaman newspaper
in Istanbul on Saturday
The
reason? The paper had run disobliging stories about the despotic
premier, such as a focus on the £400 million he has spent on a
1,000-room ‘White Palace’ for his own use, or the fact that a radio DJ
was arrested for insulting the president on Twitter.
But then there is a statute in Turkey called Article 299 which decrees that insulting the head of state is an offence.
Which
is why a schoolteacher was sentenced to almost a year in prison for
making a rude hand gesture at a political rally, and a former Miss
Turkey was prosecuted for ‘insulting’ the leader by posting a satirical
poem online.
Meanwhile,
opposition satellite television stations have been taken off air and 20
journalists jailed. It may sound like a banana republic as portrayed in
a far-fetched Hollywood film, but this is the reality of life in a
nation which is this week in the process of blackmailing the entire
European Union.
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In
short, Erdogan and his prime minister are demanding $6 billion from the
EU — no less than £500 million of which could come from Britain — to
check the relentless flow of largely Muslim migrants making their way
across the Aegean Sea to Greece and further west.
The
implicit message is clear: if the money is not forthcoming, the
floodgates will be opened, and the social and religious fabric of Europe
could be changed for ever.
Not
only that, a vital part of the deal is that from June onwards 77
million Turks will be given the right to travel all over the so-called
Schengen open borders area of the EU without a visa.
The
effrontery is breathtaking. Yet Germany’s Chancellor Merkel and her
Brussels stooges appear to have caved in to a regime whose human rights
abuses and contempt for democracy should make it a pariah state, not the
recipient of billions in European aid.
Powerful: President Recep Erdogan and
his prime minister are demanding $6 billion from the EU to check the
relentless flow of largely Muslim migrants making their way across the
Aegean Sea to Greece and further west
But
as I will explain later, there are even more sinister reasons,
involving the Syrian war and the rise of Islamic State, which should
give us all grave cause for concern over the EU’s dealings with the
appalling Mr Erdogan.
First,
we need to recall that Turkey was originally promised a package of
three billion euros by the EU last November, to help Ankara cope with
the 2.5 million refugees who have streamed across its borders, mostly
from the Syrian civil war.
Germany’s Chancellor Merkel and her
Brussels stooges appear to have caved in to a regime whose human rights
abuses and contempt for democracy should make it a pariah state
Of
course, the quid pro quo for those billions was that Turkey had to
check the flow of illegal migrants, but four months later it appears
that the Turks have made no effort to meet their side of the bargain.
Fifty-six
thousand migrants have arrived in Greece so far this year, courtesy of
Turkish smugglers, and corrupt police who collude with them.
Turkish coastguards also turn a blind eye to enable smugglers’ boats to reach Greek territorial waters just a few miles away.
To
the backdrop of this double-dealing, Erdogan’s tame prime minister
turned up in Brussels on Sunday night and invited Chancellor Merkel to a
five-hour dinner at the Turkish embassy — where he delivered a
bombshell.
Instead
of fulfilling the existing deal, he said, he wanted double the money —
$6 billion, no less — as well as that visa-free travel by June for all
Turks, and the immediate opening of new discussions to accelerate
Turkey’s membership of the EU.
Indeed, what Erdogan and his nation really want is the right to join the EU.
They
have been agitating for it for a quarter of a century, and in the
migrant crisis they see the perfect opportunity to bargain and threaten
their way into the club. At a summit the next day, what the Europeans
would get in return became clear.
Turkey
agreed to take back every single illegal migrant in Greece, provided
the EU agreed to take refugees from camps in Turkey — one for every
migrant returned from Greece.
This,
so the thinking goes, would give a chance to women, children and the
old, rather than the desperate young men we have seen barging over
frontiers across Europe.
There
are, of course, huge obstacles to this bizarre plan of one for one. As
we all too painfully know, most attempts to repatriate failed asylum
seekers have failed.
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