In terms of cooperation with Turkey, he underlined that, although there has been good progress in the EU-Turkey Action Plan, the number of illegal entries from Turkey to Greece “remains far too high”.
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Others at the center in Sid said that they were turned back from the Croatian border because some data in the migrant documents issued on the Macedonian border with Greece did not match the data in their passports, such as misspelled or incomplete names or wrong birth dates.
“The objective would be to lift all internal border controls by December, so that there can be a return to a normally functioning Schengen area by the end of 2016”, the commission said in a statement on Friday in Brussels.
Turkey’s prime minister says there has been a drop in the numbers of migrants moving toward Europe, but acknowledges that the decline isn’t a “dramatic” one.
“For the first time since the beginning of the migration crisis, I can see a European consensus emerging”, Tusk said in his letter.
A group of migrants at Greece’s border with Macedonia have blocked a rail line in protest at Macedonia’s refusal to let them in to continue their route toward Western Europe.
“Do not believe the smugglers”.
The Turkish leader said projects to be funded by the European Union money, including the construction of schools and hospitals for Syrian refugees in Turkey, would get off the ground soon.
With the end of winter threatening to herald a bigger influx of migrants, the commission wants to prevent European Union governments from further curtailing the free movement of people in Europe with more go-it-alone actions.
Tusk later travelled to Turkey, which has taken more Syrian refugees than any other country, and is the departure point for the majority trying to reach the EU.
The commission report urged Ankara to “swiftly negotiate and conclude readmission agreements with the relevant third countries”, which would then take back economic migrants from Turkey.
Some 442,000 applications were submitted in Germany, the top destination for refugees and migrants, followed by 174,000 in Hungary, which erected barbed-wire fences and used security forces to shut people out, and 156,000 in Sweden, it said.
The EU is also to push Ankara to drastically reduce the huge flow of migrants into Europe, as Turkey is the launchpad for most of the more than 1 million refugees and migrants who have arrived in Europe since early past year. Hundreds tried to storm the border with Macedonia on Monday, only to be driven back with tear gas.
“They’re going to the woods to set up fires when the temperatures fall dramatically… people are frustrated with each day that passes, they’re getting more and more exhausted”.
But EU politicians have sought to crack down on those they say are motivated by financial betterment.
After regular calls for Ankara to do more, the Commission announced on Tuesday that Greece was finally in the process of returning 308 migrants not in need of worldwide protection to Turkey.
The International Organization for Migration said before the latest tragedy that a total of 418 people have died or gone missing already in 2016, most while attempting to reach Greece from Turkey aboard unseaworthy boats. But he added Greece could not bear the burden by itself.
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“We all have to work within the Schengen area and defend the Schengen zone”, Avramopoulos said.
