EU-Turkey deal made in an atmosphere of total panic: Pundit

Press TV has interviewed William Spring, a human rights activist from London, about the possible failure of striking a deal between the EU and Turkey.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Where has this deal all gone wrong?

Spring: The … so-called deal is made in an atmosphere of total panic. It wasn’t something rationally considered by the European Union or by the Turks. And because of any deal, which is done in a state of panic, which is how most EU decision-making is done anyway, is going to come unstuck as indeed the whole European Union experiment is coming unstuck.

So there was not enough consideration about the issues involved. Neither was there any moral sense among the EU leaders ... They have no sense of international law. The people in Brussels have got no sense of state sovereignty either. They would not recognize or understand Turkish desire to maintain its integrity and sovereignty and to maintain its own posture on terrorism. None of these things are comprehensible to the European Union bigwigs and neither is it the same. It is the same when it comes to Brexit and the British leaving the EU, which is most likely, I’ve come of this referendum vote.

So I don’t think that these … ideas scribbled on the back of an envelope is any way to deal with proper policy. In this issue of the migrants or refugees to Greece and Turkey, there are enormous issues of principle and international law involved. For us to, for the European Union, to turn its back on 50 years of EU acceptance of international conventions for the sake of a mess of pottage, to use a biblical phrase, in other words for the sake of having Turkey …, the British and the European Union and all the leaders in Brussels are willing to throw overboard all the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, which have been built up over the years. And it’s quite a simple job in a sense. All that needed to be done was to make sure that the people arriving in Greece from Turkey are put into proper situation, proper camps, so they could be assessed.

We are European Union countries and all civilized countries are required to accept migrants or refugees from wherever they come. The whole world is civilized with the exception of Australia, which throws them off into some islands... But the proper way to deal with refugees is to allow them onto your territory and then once they’re on the territory, maintain security, keep them in camps, proper camps, and go and assess their application.

If some then need to be returned that’s another matter, but it’s the country of first origin or the first port of call that would return them into international law. This terrible confusion of international law brought about in this non-law and anarchic arrangement sponsored by the EU and Turkey, of course it’s going to unravel. It has never had any credence in the first place. Nobody I’m afraid in Europe wants 80 or 90 Turks wandering around.

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