Schengen and EU-Turkey Co-operation on Migration

Craig Mackinlay Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 General Committees

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. Just over a year ago, in January 2016, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, declared that the EU was facing “an existential challenge”. Unprecedented pressures on parts of the EU’s external borders, large-scale secondary movements of irregular migrants within the Schengen area and a heightened sense of threat following the terrorist attacks in Paris had, he suggested, exposed

“a clear delivery deficit on many fronts”.

He gave the EU two months, until March 2016,

“to get things under control”

or risk

“grave consequences such as the collapse of Schengen.”

The survival of the Schengen area was not guaranteed. An increasing number of member states had lost confidence in the EU’s ability to forge a collective response and had resorted to unilateral action, including the reintroduction of internal border controls. Recognising the gravity of the situation, the European Scrutiny Committee recommended that a Commission communication that set out the challenges facing the Schengen area at the beginning of 2016 be debated on the Floor of the House. In the following months, it included further documents on the EU’s response to the migration and refugee crisis and the heightened terrorist threat. That response included measures to strengthen the EU’s external borders, a co-ordinated EU approach to the reintroduction of temporary internal border controls, and concerted efforts to prevent the secondary movement of irregular migrants from Greece by closing the western Balkans route. At the height of the migrant flows in 2015, more razor wire criss-crossed Europe than at any time since the cold war.

The deal reached with Turkey in March 2016 has had the greatest impact in easing migratory pressures within the Schengen area. It has also provoked the greatest controversy. Since the deal came into effect last April, there has been a significant drop in the numbers arriving in the Greek islands, but the pace of returns to Turkey—a key element of the deal—has been far slower than anticipated. There is serious overcrowding in the migration hotspots established in Greece. Conditions are reported to be desperate. The central premise of the deal is that it must be implemented in line with EU and international law, but non-governmental organisations, those operating on the ground, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—the UN Refugee Agency—and the Red Cross are all concerned that this has not been fulfilled.

It seems perverse to be debating the future of the Schengen area and the EU-Turkey deal 14 months after we made our initial debate recommendation, given all that has happened in the intervening period, not least the UK’s decision to the leave the EU, yet within or outside the EU, the UK will continue to be affected by EU policies on asylum and migration, as the camps in Calais, Dunkirk and other places have vividly demonstrated.

As the Minister is aware, the European Scrutiny Committee has repeatedly expressed concern about the delay in scheduling today’s debate. Given that delay and the risk that the information contained in the documents would be stale, we offered to rescind our debate recommendation in return for a general debate on future co-operation between the EU and the UK on migration. The Government have not taken up our offer.

The EU has staked much on the sustainability of the EU-Turkey deal. Renewed migratory flows on the scale seen in 2015 would risk further fragmentation of the Schengen area and erosion of trust among member states. That was clearly seen in the recent Hungarian referendum. Few can doubt the fragility of the deal, its dependence on mutual good will and co-operation and its susceptibility to political events, and a regular flow of EU cash seems to underpin any ongoing good will. Even at its inception, Donald Tusk acknowledged that it was

“not perfect…We did everything we could to ensure that the agreement respects human dignity but I am conscious of the fact that everything depends on how it will be implemented. The deal with Turkey and closing the Western Balkans route raise doubts of an ethical nature, and also legal, as in the case of Turkey. I share some of these doubts”.

The Government motion offers no insight into how co-operation with EU partners is likely to change once the UK leaves the EU and how significant any changes are likely to be in practice. We ask the Minister to explain what, in the words of the motion,

“continuing to work alongside EU partners as part of a comprehensive approach to global migration issues”

will mean when the UK is no longer a member of the EU. How will it affect future co-operation with EU member states and Turkey in tackling the migration and refugee crisis?

Turning to the documents themselves, does the Minister share the ethical and legal doubts voiced by Donald Tusk last April, which have been echoed by many international agencies and non-governmental organisations operating on the ground? Can he assure us that the EU-Turkey deal is being implemented in full accordance with EU and international law? Do the Government consider Turkey to be a safe country for Syrians and other nationalities returned there from Greece, who are in need of international protection? What mechanisms are in place to ensure that individuals returned to Turkey are given appropriate protection? Finally, in the light of current tensions in bilateral relations between some member states and Turkey, is the EU-Turkey deal sustainable, and what are the likely implications for the UK if it were to collapse? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and to an informed and lively debate.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. Before I call the Minister, I remind Committee members that during his statement interventions will not be permitted. After the Minister has made his statement, he will take questions, and I will be open to supplementaries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

The point I was making was that no deal is on the table, but certainly Libya can never be considered a country to which it is safe to return people. In any case, there are serious problems with organised criminals and people traffickers operating in Libya. The lack of rule of law in Libya is also of great concern to the international community. As I said, no deal is on the table, and no model can be delivered, but overall, the Turkey deal has saved lives and resulted in people smugglers’ business being curtailed. We can certainly learn lessons from it, if we look at similar types of deal in future.

[Craig Mackinlay]

Little-championed countries such as Jordan and Lebanon have played key roles by doing their bit, particularly for Syrian refugees, and both the UK Government and the EU in general should thank them for what they are doing in this crisis. Turkey has taken 3 million Syrian refugees, but what sorts of numbers have the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman taken? I think I know the answer: few or none. Given their cultural, historical and religious links and their geographical closeness, it seems somewhat bizarre that those countries in the middle east, which have huge migrant workforces, often from Asia, have not stepped up to the plate among the international community to do their bit to relieve the suffering of the Syrians. Does the Minister know what representations the EU or the UK Government have made to encourage those countries to step up to the plate?