To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of developments in Turkey, what assessment they have made of the feasibility of applying the EU–Turkey Statement on refugees and migrants, in the form originally prescribed.
Answered on
23 March 2017
The UK remains committed to working with our European partners and Turkey to ensure that the EU-Turkey deal is implemented in an effective and sustainable way.
It is clear that the deal continues to represent an important opportunity to effectively manage migratory flows, tackle people smugglers, and prevent people from making perilous crossings.
The EU Commission published its Fifth Report on the Progress in the Implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement on 2nd March 2017. The Report concludes that the Statement is continuing to produce tangible results despite difficult circumstances, with an average daily arrival of 43 illegal migrants compared to 1,700 per day in the month before the Statement.
We continue to believe that Turkey offers sufficient protection, in both its law and its practise, to justify the return migrants from Greece under the EU-Turkey deal. Turkey has modernised its legal framework for the protection of refugees, and the UK has been monitoring the situation closely since the attempted coup. To date, there has not been any evidence of deterioration in the protections or conditions available to refugees.