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While the statistics show a resounding success, the EU is now effectively held "over a barrel" according to critics, with President Racep Erdogan clashing with member states and Brussels chiefs on domestic as well as international issues.

Critics have long feared the deal gives Turkey far too much political power over the EU, acting as an effective Sword of Damocles over eurocrats heads.

In the latest feud Turkey has been enraged by the decision of a number of European governments, especially the Netherlands, to prohibit pro-Erdogan rallies ahead of a referendum back home on expanding his powers.

There are four million ethnic Turks living in Europe all of whom have a vote on the constitutional changes, which could help tilt the knife-edge contest in the presidents favour.

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But Ukip MEP Jane Collins said the agreement had been a political disaster for Brussels and has left it totally powerless to challenge President Erdogan on his repeated human rights breaches.

She told Express.co.uk: "Turkey has the EU over a barrel over this issue of migration because the EU is a magnet for illegal migration from Africa and the Middle East.

"The EU has not solved the migrant crisis of previous summers and with the fighting in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and people still looking for a better life in the EU - particularly in the UK - there is every reason to think that we will simply have another summer where the traffickers are in control.

"That means problems at ports, threats to drivers, criminal gangs raking in millions to fund terrorism and the inevitable tragic deaths in the Mediterranean."

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She added: "There needs to be a strong message sent out that we will be turning back boats from whence they came, that we will not be permitting huge numbers of migrants travelling from Turkey into EU countries in order to travel through to other richer countries.

The Socialist and Democrats (S&D) group in the EU parliament, led by the Italian MEP Gianni Pitella, is calling on Brussels to freeze the accession talks with Ankara saying it is not suitable for EU membership.

But such a move would almost certainly kill off the migrant pact and Manfred Weber, chairman of the centre-right EPP grouping, said it should be kept in place.

Asked about the vulnerable position it puts the EU in, he added: In my talks I have no indication that they will use this as a leverage.

It is for the moment for both sides a win-win situation to implement the agreement and nobody has an interest in the smugglers and the mafia winning back control of the refugee flows.

And this week Turkeys foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu once again suggested Ankara is ready to cancel the agreement following a series of scrapes with Brussels.

But in purely statistical terms the agreement, which was formally sealed between the EU and Ankara on March 18 last year, has been a resounding success.

Europe has a moral responsibility to do better for those who need us the most

Sue Jex, Care4Calais

At the beginning of 2016 Europe was facing an increasingly untenable migration crisis, with more than a million asylum seekers having arrived the year before and many member states at breaking point.

Desperate to stem the flow of people and assuage increasingly restless voters back home, the 28 EU member states stitched together a pact with Turkey, the launchpad for most migrants to Europe.

Under the terms of the deal Ankara agreed to take back all undocumented migrants arriving in Greece, with Europe then taking one genuine Syrian refugee for every person sent back.

In return Turkey received 2.6 billion to help it cope with the three million refugees living in camps on its territory, as well as a pledge to re-energise its accession talks with Brussels.

Statistics from the United Nations refugee agency (UNCHR) show that the number of new arrivals in Greece has plummeted by 98 per cent year-on-year since the agreement was signed.

In the first three months of 2016 a massive 151,452 people made it to Greece on rafts from Turkey, but by the same period this year that number had dropped to just 2,813.

As a result, the number of refugees dying on the perilous Mediterranean crossing has also almost halved, from 272 dead and 152 missing in November 2015, to 146 dead and 51 missing in November last year.

Eurocrats have insisted that the figures show the deal is working, with EU Commission chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas telling reporters on Thursday Brussels remains fully behind its implementation.

His deputy, Alexander Winterstein, answered further questions about the deal the next day and pointed to the number of lives - "real people, real fathers, mothers, children who are being saved" - that have not been lost at sea as a result of a million fewer people attempting the dangerous trip by sea.

Aside from the political ramifications, critics have long argued the EU-Turkey deal breaches various international laws and customs on the treatment of migrants and refugees.

There have been tales of asylum seekers spending months on the Greek islands in summer tents not designed for the harsh winter, and with little access to basic sanitation and legal advice.

But despite this eurocrats are now actively pushing for the signing of a similar deal with war-torn Libya which would prevent a fresh influx of people into Europe via Italy.

Sue Jex, the head of UK operations at the refugee support charity Care4Calais, said humanitarian organisations would strongly oppose such a move because the North African state is not safe.

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A migrant gestures from behind the bars of a cell at a detention centre in Libya

She told Express.co.uk: "We do not believe that forcibly returning people to unsafe zones can ever be a morally acceptable policy. Seeing the suffering and uncertainty of those trapped in Greece does little to recommend this deal as a civilised option.

Over the last year we have watched desperate and vulnerable people pushed to take ever more dangerous routes across the Balkans. The stories we hear of children being beaten by the police, and of women being robbed and subjected to violence, do not indicate that current policies are in any way effective.

Europe's policies on migration are based on a belief in pull factors, when it is so much more important to consider the horrific trials and tribulations that refugees are fleeing from.

Care4Calais would firmly oppose any similar deal between Italy and Libya. Europe has a moral responsibility to do better for those who need us the most.

Her remarks were echoed by Philippe Dam, a co-president of Human Rights Watch who said that Turkey, let alone Libya, was not a safe country to return migrants to.

He said: There are now almost 13,000 asylum seekers stranded on the Greek islands in the context of this deal, to face immense suffering and despair.

The deal set a very dangerous precedent and its implementation led to unacceptable and unjustified sufferings.

The month long and sometimes year-long containment and sufferings on the Greek islands are the best argument why replicating these policies would be a definite blueprint for abuse.

A year on from its implementation, critics and supporters of the EU-Turkey deal remain divided between a moral vision of Europes duties, and a political necessity to reduce levels of immigration.

But with relations between Brussels and Ankara deteriorating at an unprecedented and alarming rate, few would bet that the agreement will survive the next 12 months of its rocky life.

Originally posted here:
EU-Turkey migrant deal one year on: Erdogan has EU 'over a barrel' with 'inhumane' policy - Express.co.uk