No real drop in migrants since Turkey deal

"No real drop in migrants since Turkey deal

The European Union has seen little evidence that Turkey has managed to reduce departures of migrants for Greek islands in the two weeks since it signed an agreement to do so, an EU document shows.

The report by the Luxembourg government, in its current capacity as president of EU ministerial councils, said about 4000 people a day arrived from Turkey since the accord on November 29, a "slight reduction" from the 5000-6000 seen earlier in that month. But this was not necessarily due to Turkish action.

"This decrease may, however, also be attributed to other factors," said the report, seen by Reuters and sent to EU leaders on Wednesday ahead of a summit on Thursday in Brussels at which they will discuss efforts to stem the migration crisis.

EU border agency Frontex has said arrivals in Greece in all of November were 108,000, roughly half the figure for October, largely because weather conditions had deteriorated.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and some other leaders before the main summit on Thursday to discuss a possible scheme to bring Syrian refugees directly from Turkey to Europe.

But many EU leaders have stressed that any such move depends on seeing evidence that Turkey is working to prevent people smugglers putting people to sea to reach Europe.

That is also true of disbursement of the 3 billion euros ($A4.56 billion) they pledged to Ankara on November 29 and other concessions, such as easing visa rules for Turks coming to the EU.
Originally published as No real drop in migrants since Turkey deal"


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