The leaders of the 28
European Union States said that they reached a common position
overnight in view of a deal with Turkey to combat the
asylum-seeker crisis.
The leaders gave European Council President Donald Tusk a
mandate to negotiate with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
on Friday.
The common position is that the EU will send economic
migrants whose asylum requests are rejected back to Turkey, in
exchange for accepting Syrian refugees who are currently there.
The EU will also give Turkey six billion euros in aid for
its cooperation, an easing of visa restrictions for Turks and
and it has agreed to move faster on talks for accession to the
union.
On Thursday Italian Premier Matteo Renzi warned on that
any migration accord with Turkey will set a precedent.
"We agree on reaching the accord with Turkey, but let us
be very clear - it will set a precedent," he said.
"The rules that will apply to Turkey will have to apply to
the other countries we expect (migration) flows to be coming
from".
Italy's "objective is to reach an immigration accord with
Turkey, but starting from our values and our ideals".
Any such deal with Ankara must be "based on European
principles", he added.
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