Juncker clashes with Austria over Turkey

A few days ago, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said the EU should abandon talks with Turkey on its prospective membership in the EU and proposed to discuss this matter at the next EU summit on September 16 in Bratislava. He also called negotiations with Ankara a “diplomatic fiction”. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called this comment "disgusting". 

Vestnik Kavkaza presents an article of NewEurope on Turkish-European political collisions.

Christian Kern

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in remarks published on Thursday that it would be counterproductive to freeze accession talks with Turkey, rejecting a push by Austria to halt membership talks. But Juncker told German public broadcaster ARD that Turkey is currently unfit to become a member of the European Union, in comments that could further strain relations between Ankara and the bloc it is seeking to join after a failed military coup. 

Politicians across the continent are afraid that European Union countries wouldn’t be ready to deal with another surge in migration if a deal with Turkey to limit migrant and refugee arrivals collapses.

Yiannis Mouzalas, Greek minister for migration said on Thursday that Greece and other European countries would be “severely tested” if the March agreement failed — in the wake of an attempted coup in Turkey and a government crackdown on its alleged sympathizers that has strained relations with the EU. Mouzalas told private Skai television that “no country in Europe is ready” for a repeat of the mass arrival of migrants and refugees that occurred last year. He made the remarks a day after a government official told The Associated Press that the EU-Turkey deal was holding so far, with daily arrival numbers remaining low.

About 1 million people seeking a better life in Europe’s prosperous heartland arrived on Greece’s eastern Aegean Sea islands from the beginning of 2015 to March this year. But a series of border closures in Austria and the Balkans — through which the refugees and other migrants headed north — combined with the EU-Turkey deal, greatly limited the flow. Just over 57,000 people are still trapped in Greece, distributed in about 50 state-run camps, and in apartments and hotel rooms provided by the United Nations.