Turkey is (rather successfully) attempting to blackmail Europe over their handling of the refugee crisis:
Shopping in a Turkish bazaar is never wise for the novice.
The EU learned that lesson the hard way when it discovered the carefully crafted refugee deal it believed it had sold to Turkish leaders in the run-up to Monday’s summit turned out to be little more than the beginning of the negotiation.
Turkey made Europe a counter offer early Monday that six months ago would have prompted EU negotiators to get up and walk out. To European eyes, the proposal Ankara put on the table read more like a ransom note: €3 billion in refugee aid in addition to the €3 billion already pledged, full-scale visa liberalization for Turkish citizens in the EU by June, an acceleration of Turkey’s application to join the bloc as well as a pledge to resettle many of the Syrian refugees Turkey takes in.
Turkey’s message to Europe was clear: You need us more than we need you.
That Europe is not just considering the Turkish proposal, but is likely to end up accepting most, if not all of it, is testament to the desperation of the Union and its largest member, Germany, to secure a deal to limit the flow of refugees and end a crisis that is testing EU solidarity like nothing in its history.
Seeing as how Erdogan is trying to turn Turkey into an theocratic dictatorship, you don’t want to do things like speed Turkey’s entry into the EU.
The way I see this, there are two options:
- Roll over.
- Start sending large numbers of Turks home to “make space for the refugees”, and clamp down on remittances, which cripples the Turkish economy.
I recommend that the leaders of Europe choose the 2nd option.
Using Turkish gastarbeiters as human shields is not a particularly laudable thing, but the Turks are using the Syrian refugees as human shields as well, and Turkey continues to support ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates driving the refugee flow in Syria.
The Turks won’t stop fomenting the civil war in Syria, nor trying to exploit and exacerbate the refugee crisis until the cost to them become prohibitive.