ZIPPING across the choppy Aegean in his powerboat, Nassos Karakitsos, a volunteer with a search-and-rescue NGO called Emergency Response Centre International, scans the horizon for refugees. He spots none. A few months ago the seas around the Greek island of Lesbos were filled with overstuffed rubber dinghies (“balloons with engines”, Mr Karakitsos calls them) carrying Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians from the Turkish coast. Today they are home only to the more forbidding vessels of the Greek coast guard, Frontex (the European Union’s border agency) and NATO, lately arrived to help with maritime surveillance.

The quiet seas are the result of a deal struck between the EU and Turkey to reduce migrant flows, which came into effect on March 20th. It took everyone by surprise, says a European official on Lesbos, and there were teething troubles: the police tailed a Turkish liaison officer stationed on the island, suspecting he was a spy. But for now the migrants have stopped coming. Some of the scrappy volunteer groups that flocked to Lesbos last autumn, when 6,000 refugees might clamber ashore in one day, are closing shop. Larger organisations are moving staff to mainland Greece, where 46,000 refugees have been trapped by the closure of the Macedonian border.

The drama has shifted to Greek ministries, EU agencies and the quasi-prisons on Aegean islands created by the Turkey deal. On Lesbos, all arrivals are taken to Moria, a “hotspot” (processing centre) turned detention camp. Most will face return once their asylum claims have been found inadmissible, on the ground that they reached Greece from Turkey, now considered a safe country for asylum-seekers. (Deportations of migrants who did not claim asylum in Greece have already begun.) Activists consider the deal a shameful abrogation of the EU’s commitment to human rights. The pope, who has attacked Europe’s “anaesthetised conscience” on refugees, will visit Lesbos on April 16th.

Well over 3,000 souls have been stuffed into Moria, a grim place of barbed wire and watchtowers. Through a fence Muhammad, a Syrian refugee, tells Charlemagne of overcrowded shelters and a complete lack of information before a policeman cuts the conversation short. Pakistanis—who, curiously, have been arriving in greater numbers since the deal kicked in—have begun a hunger strike. The NGOs that used to provide services inside Moria have partly withdrawn in protest, leaving it short of infrastructure, expertise and food. Last week Amnesty International, a human-rights watchdog, criticised the “appalling conditions” at Moria and another centre on the island of Chios.

Worse may be to come. All migrants on the island have the right to claim asylum and to appeal if rejected, and 95% have taken this up. The Greeks plan to conclude each case within just 15 days. But there are endless unanswered questions over the process, from the treatment of unaccompanied minors to the provision of legal aid. “It’s an experiment for us, and for Europe,” says Maria Stavropoulou, the director of the Greek asylum service.

Very little about Europe’s handling of the refugee crisis has gone right. This deal is unlikely to be an exception. Refugees who have spent vast sums to flee life-threatening situations may not go willingly. The fate of non-Syrians returned to Turkey is unclear. Legal challenges are certain. The timeline for processing may well slip. In the meantime, if arrivals pick up again, Lesbos could reach its capacity of around 6,000. Officials have already begun offloading migrants from Moria to other camps. Dozens of EU asylum officials have been dispatched to process the claims. Ms Stavropoulou’s service has doubled in number. But she cannot bring herself to say that she is confident the deal will work.

Much of the criticism the deal has attracted is therefore deserved. And yet, as Yannis Mouzalas, the Greek migration minister, notes, by the time it was signed it was the best that could be done. The EU had learned the hard way that it was unable to create a relocation scheme to share the refugee burden, and without one, fences were the only alternative. For those European politicians whose priority was to reduce the flow, the new arrangement looks like a success. New asylum registrations in Germany fell to 21,000 in March, down from over 200,000 in November. Fears that migrants stranded in Greece would find other ways through have not come to pass; instead, they have camped out in wretched conditions near the border, and elsewhere, in the futile hope that it will reopen one day.

Asylum or bust

This has created a tinderbox in Greece—last week Macedonian police tear-gassed migrants who tried to storm the border—but breathing space for politicians. Not long ago pundits speculated that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, might not see out her term. Now she enjoys rising approval ratings.

That could change if the deal collapses. But there is a bigger concern. There was, despite appearances, a noble idea behind the EU-Turkey deal: stop the irregular migrant flows to make way for regular ones. Europe will probably make good on its minimal commitment to accept one Syrian refugee from Turkey for each one sent back from Greece. But the deal also includes a vague promise of far more substantial resettlements to Europe: optimists have spoken of 200,000 a year or more. On this there is little sign of movement, despite the efforts of German and Dutch politicians to corral their colleagues into making pledges.

Throughout this crisis Europe has been accused of pulling up the drawbridge and shunting its problems onto its neighbours. So far the accusation has not been warranted. But it will be if the EU fails to make good on its resettlement promises. On the wall of Moria the graffiti is still visible behind the whitewash: “EU shame on you.” If Europe does not show that its refugee policy amounts to more than border closures, detention and forced deportation, it will become impossible not to agree.