The European Union said that Turkey is not doing everything in its power to decrease the refugee flow crossing the European borders, despite the country’s commitment to do so two months ago.
“We are a long way from being satisfied,” European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans told reporters in Amsterdam on Thursday. “We will continue discussing ways of improving the effectiveness of their operation.”
The European Union has been pushing Turkey to reduce the number of migrants and refugees that cross the border between Turkey and Greece in an attempt to reach northern European countries. The EU is currently faced with the largest refugee crisis since World War II, with thousands of refugees and migrants crossing its borders each week.
EU officials have already offered Turkey a 3-billion-euro package as reward for protecting the European border. Furthermore, they also promised to relaunch Turkey’s EU membership bid, but only after they see evident results of the country’s efforts.
“It is quite clear that over the last couple of weeks the figures have remained relatively high, so there is still a lot of work to do,” said Timmermans.
It was reported that around two million refugees from Syria and other conflict-stricken countries in the Middle East were residing in Turkey last month. Since the turn of the year Greece has seen as many as 5,500 refugees cross to its islands and mainland, mainly from Turkey, according to the United Nations.
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