The European Commission is to grant Turkey conditional approval this Wednesday for visa-free travel within the EU’s Schengen area, sources have told the BBC.
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Mindful of Turkey’s pivotal role in managing Europe’s refugee crisis, the European Commission said Ankara has met all but five of the 72 criteria needed to end visa requirements.
“The Turkish authorities have made remarkable progress since the 18 March EU-Turkey Summit, and we trust Turkey is committed to delivering on all fronts as soon as possible”, said Dimitris Avramopoulos, Europe’s commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship. Turkey will get the green light over visas this week to keep it sweet.
The commission asked EU leaders and the European Parliament to approve the plan by June 30.
Visa exemption will apply to the four Schengen-associated countries Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, according to the European Commission.
IT’S NOT ON: Activists in Rome protest in front of the Turkish embassy against the EU-Turkey agreement on migrants.
Late on Monday, the Turkish cabinet approved waiving visas for visitors from European Union member states, once the European Union lifts its visa requirements for Turkish citizens.
Timmermans said the new mechanism would be activated only in times of crisis, and countries that show they temporarily can not take any asylum seekers under the mechanism should show “financial solidarity”, he added.
“If the European Union abolishes visas for Turkish citizens, then we will also abolish visas for the remaining European Union countries”, said a Turkish official who insisted he didn’t want to be named because the full deal had not yet been finalized.
These requirements range from respect for human rights to biometric passports.
The so-called Dublin rules now in force have been criticised as obsolete and unfair to countries like Greece, where most of the migrants entered the bloc previous year.
Weber said parliament too would demand a tougher emergency brake as part of the package, as well as longer-term proposals to reform the EU’s broken asylum system, known as the Dublin rules, which put the onus on the country of first arrival.
Kosovo’s citizens are the only ones in the Balkans who still need visas to travel in the Schengen area.
The EU fears that without this deal, Turkey will not control migration.
The Commission is proposing a special mechanism whereby refugees and migrants can be relocated to other countries if a crisis is declared – for example in Greece.
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Turkey is the most sensitive because it has the biggest population with 79 million and due to its flawed record on civil and minority rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law.
