Reappraising the EU-Turkey Refugee Statement within the Human Rights and Neoliberalism Nexus

ABSTRACT

Instead of acting consistently with international law and its own refugee law, the EU has adopted an ambivalent stance over refugee arrivals to Europe. Member states’ increasing anxiety led the EU to tighten border controls and outsource its humanitarian responsibilities by agreeing on a statement with Turkey to prevent refugees from entering the EU irregularly. This paper focuses on the human rights breaches and contradictions of the EU-Turkey Statement by specifically investigating the one-in-one-out mechanism and the argument that Turkey is safe country. It is argued that the Statement has turned the refugee issue into the subject of the European market because the political architecture of EU human rights norms has historically been part of the neoliberal hegemony. Hence, the refugee case reveals how inadequately produced norms inside Europe’s borders reproduce inequalities and cause mismatches between the EU’s claimed role as rights promoter and its practical inadequacies and market-based pragmatism.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee crisis
• EU-Turkey relations
• human rights norms
• Gramscian theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Mültecilerle Dayanışma Derneği/MULTECİ-DER (Solidarity with Refugees Association), Uluslararasi Mülteci Hakları Derneği (International Refugee Rights Association), Hayata Destek Derneği/STL (Support for Life Association), Halkların Köprüsü Derneği (Peoples’ Bridge Association), İltica ve Göç Araştırmaları Merkezi/İGAM (The Research Centre for Asylum and Migration), Göç Araştırmaları Derneği/GAR (Association for Migration Research), İnsan Hakları ve Mazlumlar İçin Dayanışma Derneği/MAZLUMDER (Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed), Uluslararası Göçmen Kadınlar Dayanışma Derneği (International Migrant Women’s Solidarity Association), Ravdanur Derneği (Ravdanur Association), Sınır Tanımayan Kadınlar Platformu/Göçmen Kadınlarla Dayanışma Grubu (Women without Borders/Solidarity with Migrant Women Group).

2. More information is available at https://ijrcenter.org/refugee-law/ (accessed 10 June 2020).

3. More information is available at.

https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/examination-of-applicants_en (accessed 12 June 2020)

4. More information is available at.

https://portal.cor.europa.eu/europe2020/Profiles/Pages/TheLisbonStrategyinshort.aspx (accessed 11 December 2022)

5. More information is available at https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/library-document/green-paper-eu-approach-managing-economicmigration_en (accessed 09.05.2023)

6. More information is available at.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32009L0050 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-towards-a-new-policy-on-migration/file-jd-revision-ofthe-blue-card-directive?sid=1 (accessed in 09.05.2023).

7. Representative of the Solidarity with Refugees Association.

8. Representatives of the Solidarity with the Refugees Association and International Refugee Rights Association.

9. The representatives of the Association for Migration Research and the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed.

10. The representatives of the Association for Migration Research, the Research Centre on Asylum and Migration, and the International Migrant Women’s Solidarity Association.

11. More information available at.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/turkey-syrian-refugees-resettlement-blocked-us-degrees (accessed 11 December 2022)

https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-prevent-well-educated-syrian-refugees-from-leaving-migration/ (accessed 11 December 2022)

https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-refuses-eu-travel-to-highly-skilled-syrian-refugees-report/a-19274693 (accessed 11 December 2022)

12. At an internal EU meeting, a representative of Luxembourg said that the list of departing refugees proposed by Turkey overwhelmingly ‘contained [people] with serious medical cases or refugees with very low education.’ The German Deputy Interior Minister Ole Schröder reported the same tendency to Der Spiegel. More detail is available at.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-refugee-deal-between-the-eu-and-turkey-is-failing-a-1094339.html (accessed 11 December 2022)

13. Representative of Bridging Peoples.

14. Representatives of the Research Centre on Asylum and Migration, and the International Migrant Women’s Solidarity Association.

15. Representatives of the International Refugee Rights Association and Support for Life.

16. Representative of the Solidarity with Refugees Association.

17. Representatives of Ravdanur Association, Women without Borders/Solidarity with Migrant Women Group, and Bridging Peoples.

18. Representatives of Ravdanur Association, Women without Borders/Solidarity with Migrant Women Group, and the International Migrant Women’s Solidarity Association.

19. For more details on the EU’s list of projects table, see.

https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/facility_table.pdf (accessed 10 September 2020).

20. Representatives of Ravdanur Association.

21. Representatives of Support to Life and Bridging Peoples.