EU migration crisis actions with a focus on the EU-Turkey Agreement

Abstract

The Migration Crisis is today at the core of the EU agenda and yet poses a major challenge to intra-EU solidarity mechanisms. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, almost three million first time applications have been registered in EU states (plus Norway and Switzerland), of which 650,250 and 199,205 are, respectively, Syrians and Iraqis. In the same period, 1.6 million migrants arrived on the southern borders of Europe by boat, while 13,179 people died in the waters of the Mediterranean. In this policy brief, EU ad hoc programmes for the management of the Crisis are discussed. At the time of writing, the core programmes consist of 1) a Relocation Scheme; 2) a Resettlement Scheme; and 3) the 18/03 EU-Turkey Agreement.