Europe Grapples With Plan to Return Refugees From Greece to TurkeyEuropean leaders edged closer early on Friday to a deal to return asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey despite a host of legal, political and moral issues raised by their latest effort to quell the migrant crisis.
The common stance agreed by the European Union’s 28 national leaders still needs the approval of Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. He flew here late Thursday for face-to-face talks on Friday.
Those negotiations will revolve around what incentives to grant Turkey, which is not a European Union member, in return for Turkey’s taking on the job of housing more of the migrants while they wait for word on whether they qualify for resettlement in Western Europe.
“We need to put all our efforts into achieving an agreement with Turkey,” Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, told an early morning news conference. “These will be negotiations that will certainly be anything but easy,” she warned.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, the body representing European leaders; Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive agency; and Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, were expected to lead what are intended to be a final round of negotiations with Mr. Davutoglu on Friday morning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/world/europe/europe-grapples-with-plan-to-return-refugees-from-greece-to-turkey.html?ref=world&_r=0
