Turkey has upper hand on EU refugee crisis: Journalist

Press TV has conducted an interview with David Lindorff, an investigative journalist from Philadelphia, about difference between Turkey and the European Union on Ankara’s anti-terrorism law and refugee deal.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Ankara is obviously sticking to its guns with these anti-terror laws, good move or bad?

Lindorff: Well, I mean it's a question of who has the upper hand in the negotiations. Turkey probably really wants to get the visa access because it allows its overflow of workforce to get jobs in Europe and that someday (they) send money back and so on. So, that's a motivation for Turkey to want the visa access. Europe on the other hand doesn't want to be flooded with the refugees coming from the war in Syria who are going into Turkey and then Turkey can just ask control over sort of the spigot as to whether they keep them in refugee camps in Turkey which they don't really want to do or allow them to move on into Europe. And that's terrifying to Europe where we see all these right-wing movements, anti-immigrant movements, rising up because of the flood of refugees. So, my feeling is that Turkey has the upper hand. If they were to really let people pass through and move on into Europe it would be devastating to the ruling parties in most of the countries of Europe and we'd see a lot of shifts to the right like Le Pen in France and the right-wing movement in Germany and certainly in England or the UK and so on. So, I think Turkey has the upper hand here.

Press TV: Since this deal was reached there has been a significant decrease in the number of refugees flowing into Europe as opposed to last year but there could be a bunch of other contributing factors that contribute to that. But now is that EU’s asking too much, you think, aside from the ball being in whose court more Ankara’s or the EU’s. Do you think that EU’s asking too much of Ankara or is it justified to make the demands that it has since the rest of Europe has to abide pretty much more that's by the same standards?

Lindorff: Yeah, well let’s point that Europe does have standards that it has been applying to giving them visa rights and it doesn't just casually give everybody visa rights. So, I think that it would be fairly big deal for them to waive their standards and let Turkey have the visa rights if it is also continuing with this really repressive anti-terrorism law. One of the things that happens is if Turkey is really cracking down on democracy and freedoms in Turkey then that could lead to Turkish refugees coming to Europe which Europe doesn't want to see happen. So, it's in Europe's interest to see those laws softened.

Press TV: Right, and I mean you said that you feel that the balls are more in Turkey's court at this point. Do you feel like accordingly Turkey will prevail through these negotiations as a result or do you think it will fall through?

Lindorff: Well, it's hard to predict but I think right now the European governments are on such thin ice with the rise of their anti-immigrant right that those governments are not going to want to see a flood of immigrants which would push things further to right and maybe ask a bunch of governments that are in power now. We saw that in Austria where there was a right-wing neo-fascist who almost won the presidency and I guess there's going to be a new election there soon because it was so close that the election commission said they had to redo it for Austrian president. So, it's a very tense time I think for existing ruling parties.

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