Monday, November 30, 2015
A special EU-Turkey summit meeting in Brussels concluded in an agreement on Sunday (29.11), where Turkey will help stem the flow of migrants to Europe in return for 3 billion euros cash, visa-free travel for Turks to Europe and renewed EU entry talks. In a joint statement, the 28 Heads of State or Government of the European Union, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk agreed with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to activate the EU-Turkey joint Action Plan to deal with the refugee crisis created by the situation in Syria, to bring order into refugee flows and stem irregular migration.
Key elements of the agreement include giving Turkey an additional 3 billion euros in conditional EU aid to create initiatives to keep the 2.2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey -rather than attempt perilous crossings to the EU via the Greek islands-, "re-energizing" Turkey’s accession process to the EU within the existing negotiating framework and providing visa-free travel for Turks to Europe’s Schengen zone within a year, if Turkey manages to tighten its borders and reduce the migrant flows to Europe.
