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Merkel says EU needs Turkey to halt migrant tide

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EU leaders meet Thursday to press Turkey to help stem the flow of refugees towards Europe, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying it was “unacceptable” that the short sea crossing to Greece was controlled by people smugglers.

The Brussels summit will focus on securing Turkey’s agreement to a plan to halt the flood of humanity seeking refuge from war and upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa, with almost 600,000 people crossing the Mediterranean this year.

“We cannot organise or stem the refugee movements without working with Turkey,” declared Merkel as she urged Europe to stand together in the face of its worst migrant crisis since World War II.

“Europe needs to show solidarity, anything else would be a failure,” warned Merkel, who travels to Turkey this weekend as part of a European diplomatic offensive aimed at Ankara.

As leaders gathered, eight migrants were left missing after their boat collided with a Greek rescue vessel near the Greek island of Lesbos — the current point of entry for one in every five migrants arriving in the EU.

Meanwhile, Croatia said more than 4,800 migrants had entered on Wednesday, bringing the overall number of arrivals in the EU member state to nearly 175,000.

The EU summit will push an action plan with Turkey — which has taken in more than two million Syrian refugees — that it first raised during talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week.

EU Vice-President Frans Timmermans and other senior officials arrived in Turkey on Wednesday to press officials on the scheme, having postponed their visit after deadly suicide bombings in Ankara at the weekend.

– ‘We need guarantees’ –

But European Council President Donald Tusk, who is hosting the summit, said it was proving “difficult” to get firm commitments from Turkey.

“We need guarantees that Turkey’s response to our offer will be as concrete and as substantive as ours,” Tusk told a pre-summit press conference.

“The most important thing is how Turkey will cooperate with us to stem this wave of refugees, especially as we fear that the new wave can be bigger than now.”

European leaders hope that by helping Turkey cope with the refugees and tighten border controls, they can prevent more people risking their lives on the perilous journey to Europe.

They have dangled the carrot of progress in Turkey’s long-standing EU membership candidacy, which has stalled over its human rights record.

But Turkey has appeared reluctant so far on the refugee plan, demanding more cash and swifter moves towards visa free travel to Europe, as well as rejecting proposals for more refugee camps.

Leaders will discuss a possible safe zone that Turkey wants to establish on its border with war-torn Syria, but Tusk said he would be focusing on more “pragmatic and realistic” issues.

“If we add the fact of the Russian presence and activity in Syria today it shows how difficult this possible safe zone is,” he said.

Mindful of the Ukraine conflict in the background, the EU are also set to warn that Moscow’s military intervention will only add to the chaos amid concerns millions more people could be forced to flee if the war continues.

“The European Council expressed its concern about the Russian attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians, and the risk of further military escalation,” said draft summit conclusions obtained by AFP.

– Greece seeks help too –

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was meanwhile reportedly set to urge his EU peers to provide more aid for his cash-strapped nation, which is in the front line of most of the refugees entering the bloc.

Kathimerini daily said Tsipras told Merkel in a telephone call on the eve of the summit that Greece would seek “more forces from (EU border agency) Frontex and a faster disbursement of funds”, as well as saying the refugee flow should be handled in Turkey.

With no end in sight to Syria’s four-and-a- half year war, the EU has been toughening its stance over the flow of migrants and refugees.

Arguments over relocating 160,000 refugees from the frontline states of Greece and Italy have given way to fears that Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone could collapse as countries try to curb the huge numbers of migrants criss-crossing the continent.

EU leaders will discuss a possible EU border guard system and the future of the EU’s Dublin asylum regulations.

The Dublin rules say refugees must seek asylum in the first EU country they land in but they are being sorely tested as the majority of migrants head for Germany after first transiting Greece.

The EU leaders will also discuss so-called “hotspots” — controversial reception centres where migrants are registered, fingerprinted and sorted into genuine refugees who will be granted asylum and economic migrants who must return home.

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