Leaders will meet Turkish prime minister to agree plan, which aims to stem flow of migrants and refugees

The EU is preparing to scale back the number of Syrian refugees offered resettlement in Europe, as part of a controversial pact being drawn up with Turkey.

The bloc’s 28 leaders will hold a summit in Brussels on Thursday, before a meeting the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, on Friday, to hammer out the final details of a plan aimed at stemming the flow of refugees and migrants coming to Europe.

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More than 1.1 million refugees and migrants came to Europe in 2015, including around 363,000 Syrians who lodged asylum applications, while 143,634 people have arrived in Greece from Turkey this year so far, according to figures from the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).

The EU has pledged to resettle Syrian refugees currently in Turkey, but figures that emerged on Wednesday suggested only 72,000 places would be available, with uncertainty about the bloc’s commitment beyond this number.

As the UNHCR stepped up calls for a coordinated approach to manage the number of people, European diplomats were scrambling to finalise a deal with Turkey.

Under a proposed “one-for-one” scheme, for every Syrian refugee in Turkey who is resettled in Europe, a Syrian in Greece would be sent back across the Aegean. The vast majority of refugees and migrants in Greece can also expect to be sent back to Turkey.

When these broad principles were agreed at an EU-Turkey summit 10 days ago, the numbers were vague but details are now emerging.

Of the 72,000 places identified by the Commission for Syrian refugees, 18,000 places would be available under a voluntary resettlement scheme agreed last year.

A further 54,000 places may be available “if needed” under a separate scheme designed to spread asylum seekers more evenly around the bloc, although this would require a change to EU law.

Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the European commission, said the EU would continue to help after these places were used up. It pointed to “a coalition of the willing”, made up of EU member states including Germany and Austria, who have pledged to resettle Syrians once irregular arrivals had stopped. “When we succeed in breaking the pattern of irregular arrivals one-for-one will not become none-for-none,” Timmermans said.

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But the various EU schemes to rehouse refugees are painfully slow. A plan to find homes for 160,000 refugees has led to only 937 being resettled, according to the latest data.

Several countries are concerned that the Turkey deal could mean large-scale resettlement of Syrians in Europe. A senior EU official said there “cannot be an open-ended commitment on the EU side”.

The numbers discussed indicate that the EU wants to scale back help in Europe offered to refugees. Syrians in Greece will go to the back of the queue for resettlement in Europe once they are returned to Turkey. “Priority will be given to Syrians who have not previously entered the EU irregularly,” states an unpublished draft.

The commission argues the plan will kill the business model of people smugglers, as potential migrants will have no incentive to come to Europe if they think they will be turned away. But the UN’s human rights chief has warned that the EU risks compromising its human rights values if it cuts corners on asylum standards.

The European commission said that Turkey is a safe third country, meaning that any asylum seeker or migrant can be lawfully returned.

Human rights groups, however, argue that Turkey cannot be considered a safe third country under international asylum law, because refugees run the risk of being returned to the place they had fled from.

EU lawyers insist the European commission’s decision would not fall foul of the Geneva convention, because each asylum seeker would be assessed in Greece by judges to check if there was any reason not to send them back to Turkey.

Amid the legal wrangling, serious questions remain over the sweeteners for Turkey. The Cypriot president, Nicos Anastasiades, has warned he will veto any move to reopen Turkey’s EU membership talks until Ankara agrees to open its ports and airports to Cypriot traffic.

France has concerns about a visa liberalisation deal that would make it easier for Turks to travel in the Schengen-free zone. Neither has the EU agreed on Turkey’s demand for an extra €3bn to help refugees in Turkey, in addition to €3bn agreed last year, although this is less contentious.



One EU official said any of these issues were “a potential deal-breaker”. Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, has sent back a revised text to ambassadors from the EU’s 28 member states, saying the existing draft needed to be “rebalanced”.

The broad outlines of the EU-Turkey plan were agreed by the German chancellor Angela Merkel and Davutoğlu, but came as a shock to most other EU leaders.

To assuage concerns that Turkey is getting too much from the EU, diplomats insist there will be no shortcuts to visa liberalisation or EU accession. Turkey has to meet 72 conditions to ease visa restrictions for its citizens by its preferred June deadline. These bureaucratic hurdles range from issuing passports with EU-standard security chips to stepping up surveillance of its borders with more air and sea patrols.



