Seventy-five million Turks will move a giant step closer to visa-free access to continental Europe tomorrow, even though Ankara has yet to meet a series of demands from Brussels.
The European Commission will propose that Turks receive the travel concession at the start of July, a key part of the deal under which Turkey has agreed to take back all migrants entering Greece illegally.
However, Turkey is yet to meet all 72 legal and political criteria set out by Brussels as a condition of the relaxed travel rules. At least ten issues are outstanding, according to Brussels sources.
They include introducing biometric passports, extending judicial co-operation to Cyprus, which Turkey does not recognise as a sovereign state, and giving Cypriot nationals free access to Turkey. Other unmet conditions include revising anti-terrorism laws to protect minority rights, increasing transparency over the funding of political parties and extending EU data-protection standards to security services.
The issue of travel is critical to the fate of the migrant deal. Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, has said that Ankara would tear up the deal unless the EU extented visa-free travel.
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The European Commission is expected to say tomorrow that the new travel rules are on track. However, all eyes will be on the language used and one EU diplomat said that the focus would be on “what kind of legal formulas and tricks they will use to justify the move”.
EU countries and the European parliament must also vote on the proposal. If they vote “yes”, then all Turkish citizens would, from July, be able to enter the Schengen travel zone for up to 90 days during any 180-day period. Initially Brussels could limit such travel to those with a biometric passport.
The deal does not include the right to take up jobs in the EU.
The UK and Ireland will not take part in the EU vote and will not be bound by the decision because they are not part of Schengen. However, the decision comes as the UK votes in the referendum on EU membership on June 23, and Leave campaigners are already saying that Britain should quit because the increase in emigration to Europe would be a threat to British security.
EU sources said there was unlikely to be a final decision until the EU summit on June 28. “If I was in Downing Street, I wouldn’t want any complicated EU decisions to come out in the run-up to the referendum,” one EU official said.
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Both France and Germany, where there has a rise in the popularity of far-right parties, have urged the commission to create a “snap-back mechanism” on visa-free travel.
In a letter seen by The Times, they said that if there were a “substantial increase” in the number of people from a particular country who overstayed their 90-day visa or in applications for EU asylum or residence permits, then the visa perks of that country should be frozen for six months. They said the commission should file regular reports on overstayers and act faster than envisaged in the present, nine-month-long procedure for suspension.
Worries on border security were also voiced by Austria, Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden in a separate letter to the commission over the weekend. The letter, also seen by The Times, asked Brussels to let them maintain border checks inside the Schengen zone for a further six months.
It cited “serious shortcomings” in the EU’s ability to protect its external borders and said the situation on irregular migration via Greece and the Mediterranean remains “extremely volatile”.
The letter said that the Paris and Brussels attacks showed that “terrorist groups were likely to try to take advantage of deficiencies in border controls”.
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An EU spokeswoman declined to say which conditions Turkey was unlikely to meet on time. She added that the commission would approve the six-month extension on Schengen border checks. On the issue of the Franco-German “snap-back”, she said the commission already has a “safeguard mechanism” on visa-free suspension.
