Joint debate on EU-Turkey cooperation in the field of migration.

Brussels

EU - Türkiye (T)

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

VOZEMBERG-VRIONIDI, Elissavet (EPP, EL)

SIPPEL, Birgit (S&D, DE)

SARGENTINI, Judith (Greens/EFA, NL)

joint debate

KIRKHOPE, Timothy (ECR, UK)

Joint debate on EU-Turkey cooperation in the field of migration. MEPs debate EP Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

SOUNDBITE (English), Martin VERWEY, EU coordinator for the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement, The objective of all of this is to really put an end to the dangerous crossings across the Aegean Sea, to break the business model of the smugglers and all this with one very, very important pre-condition that whatever is done is in full respect of the European and the international law.

SOUNDBITE (English), Martin VERWEY, EU coordinator for the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement, In the period from the 1st January to the 20th or the 21st of March I should say, before the drop in arrivals, 90 people lost their lives at sea. Since the 21st no one has lost his life. Now, that is not a prediction of the future but it is a logical consequence of that the numbers have gone down and this was exactly one of the objectives of this agreement.

SOUNDBITE (Greek), Elissavet VOZEMBERG-VRIONIDI (EPP, EL), Since the implementation of the agreement 95% of the people arrived in Greece, who have an international status as refugees, 95% have claimed asylum. There are claims which have been accepted within a few days, and they have also the right to appeal. And whatever decision is taken, they can have a second chance, which means that they are likely to stay in Greece.

SOUNDBITE (German), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), The message we seem to be putting out is that refugees can go wherever they want as long as it's not Europe, quite simply because a lot member states are not willing to welcome or host refugees. In addition, if we believe that large number of refugees should stay in states outside the EU, at the very least after spending so much money on saving banks, we should ensure that those states, which are significantly more instable and economically less wroth than us, we should ensure that they've been given sufficient funding to deal with those refugees.

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), I think that it is terribly important that the Turkish Asylum system is clarified i.e. who does and who does not qualified for refugee status. Examination of applications for Asylum under the United Nations convention of 1951 do not discriminate on the basis of nationality for instance and I don't think there should be discrimination on nationality here in dealing with that particular approach.

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), I think the Turkish authorities should agree to an independent UN based evaluation, also of the spending of the funds and this report of consideration should be taken every three months.

SOUNDBITE (English), Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL), Onwards on detention in Greece, please elaborate on the fact that these camps used to be open camps and now detention centres, where actually there are foot shortages; food shortages and children, babies not getting the baby milk that they actually need. This is in the European Union, this is people detained, people detained with not enough food, come on!

SOUNDBITE (English), Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL), NGOs stopped working and the UNHCR as well, when these camps became detention centres hence probably the food problem, how do we reflect on that? We see the civil society moving away from us; that should wake us up.

SOUNDBITE (English), Martin VERWEY, EU coordinator for the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement, There are certain NGOs which simply have in their statutes that they cannot work in closed centres so that I have to accept. What we can do and what we have done is to deal with the situation that emerges after that. We made available emergency assistance; there was a question of the amount: it is 30 million if my memory tells me correctly, for catering, for medical services, for cleaning services, so the essential things that need to be there.