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The European Union (EU) migrant agreement with Turkey began in March 2016. Since then, the EU has taken in6,907 Syrian asylum seekers directly from Turkey.

Ankara, by contrast, has taken only 1,229 migrants from Greece which contradicts the agreement in which Turkey is expected to take back one migrant for every migrant Europe takes from Turkey,Die Welt reports.

The EU-Turkey agreement has largely been credited with stopping the massive flow of migrants which, in 2015 at the height of the migrant crisis, saw over a million migrants arrive in Germany.

Germany has also taken in the most migrants from Turkey since the agreement began, admitting2,516 Syrians followed by Netherlands who have taken 1,552, and then France with 839.

The Greek government has returned only 1,229 migrants to Turkey; the EU Commissionblames the lack of numbers on the slow asylum claim procedures in Greece.

Since the closure of the Greek border with Macedoniaand Bulgaria, the Greek government has been stuck with tens of thousands of migrants. Realising they would be sent back to Turkey after the agreement, huge numbers of the migrants in Greece applied for asylum, overwhelming the Greek system.

Greece has also been heavily criticised for the conditions in the migrant camps, which are often located on islands in the Aegean Sea. The government has countered the claims saying the countrys resources have been stretched to the limit and have asked the EU for financial assistance.

In order to provide relief for Greece, the EU has attempted to redistribute migrants from the country and from Italy, which has seen a surge of migrants from North Africa in the past year.

Many countries, particularly Central European countries like Poland and Hungary, have rejected the EUs redistribution plans. The EU has threatened both countries witheconomic sanctions for refusing to accept migrants but both countries have remained defiant.

Turkey has also used the migrant agreement to threaten the bloc on several occasions. Turkish PresidentRecep Tayyip Erdoan threatened to scrap the agreement earlier this year when Austria voted to stopTurkeys accessionprocess to the EU.

In March of this year, Turkish Foreign Minister Sleyman Soylu threatened a wave of 15,000 migrants permonth after several EU countries banned Turkish politicians from holding rallies supporting a referendum that merged the powers of the prime minister and the presidency of Turkey.

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Europe Taking in Five Times the Number of Migrants Agreed from Turkey - Breitbart News

The migration crisis that has been central to the European political drama since 2014 is rapidly changing. You can see signs of change everywhere, from subtle intensifications of bureaucratic language to an increasing frankness about what the migration crisis has done to Europes nations and societies. It also shows up in the numbers. The overall rate of migration into Europe is starting to decline, but the number of migrants who are dying in their attempt is going up. But you can see it most of all in the willingness of European leaders to tell the truth.

Just in the past ten days, you can see a shift. European Council president Donald Tusk admitted that most of the people coming in have no right to do so: In most of the cases, and that is actually the case on the central Mediterranean route, were talking clearly and manifestly about economic migrants. He added, They get to Europe illegally, they do not have any documents which would allow them to enter the European soil. In other words, these primarily arent refugees fleeing war, theyre economic migrants, who are coming in to countries along the southern Mediterranean that already suffer massive unemployment.

The reality is sinking in within the member states as well. Aydan Ozoguz, the German commissioner for immigration, refugees, and integration, admitted this week that three-quarters of the refugees Germany took in recently will still be unemployed in five years.

Just a year ago, pundits were holding out that Europe would find economic salvation in the warm bodies crossing the Mediterranean. It was an argument that never made sense, given the millions of unemployed but educated youth already in the European Union. Instead of a new round of guest workers, Germany has added hundreds of thousands of new dependents on the state, most with few job skills and no language preparation. The latter problem now taxes police departments, which have to find Pashto translators to investigate crimes such as the murder of Muslims for apostasy.

For years, Australias government had told the EU that they would have to look at Australias model for successful border enforcement. EU officials dismissed this, often with criticism of Australias approach. But earlier this year, just as Australian prime minister Tony Abbott had predicted, EU officials came to Australia for help.

On Friday, the European Union member states agreed to restrict visas for foreign countries that refuse to take back their own nationals who do not qualify as refugees.

Germanys deal with Turkey, along with the enforcement position of Viktor Orbans Hungary (which Germany still pretends to deplore) has mostly closed the land route into Europe through the Middle East but now the Libyan coast is the main source of migration. The EUs President Tusk described a 26 percent rise in the number of migrants arriving in Italy from Europe over the Mediterranean.

But it may finally be dawning on Europes elites that their attempts to rescue people at sea are endangering migrants as often as saving them. Migrants hoping for a European rescue are put on inflatable rafts (or worse) and launched off the coast of Tripoli. They make about one-sixth of the journey toward Sicily, and sometimes even less. Once they cross out of Libyan waters they enter what is commonly known as the Search and Rescue Zone or just SAR Zone. They then signal their distress and get European rides the rest of the way or they collapse and capsize and the migrants drown. Over the weekend, the Irish navy, and its ship L Eithne, took more than 700 migrants. The composition tells you the nature of the migration: a score of children, some pregnant women...and over 500 adult males.

The problem is that by running this ferry service, Europeans have created an ugly industry in Libya. The slave trade and human-smuggling enterprises are now among the most important private-sector businesses in the chaotic post-Gaddafi Libya, which is ruled by two rival governments and several other militias and gangs. This is a brutal business, and the stories from it are terrifying. According to the Daily Telegraph, a young Gambian migrant told the International Organization for Migration that he witnessed a sick friend of his buried alive in one of the sordid migrant encampments in Libya, because he wouldnt have survived anyway. If a migrant in Libya is thought to have relatives with money, he is often sold in a human market to gangs that will torture him to extract the cash from his family.

These stories are starting to shock the European conscience just as the photos of drowning migrants shocked it two years ago.

This doesnt mean an end to migration in Europe. Yet another migration route seems to be opening between Morocco and Spain, even as Europe gets a handle on the previous routes. The millions who have come into Europe since 2014 will now become resources to enable their families and friends and others to make their own, less dangerousentrance into Europe. And there will still be continued pressure on European countries to open up and share their wealth with the booming populations in Africa, and the war-weary nationals of the Middle East. There will be more potential waves of immigration coming, and more debates about whether Europe can and should seek to avoid them.

But right now Europes grand experiment in humanitarianism has delivered some results that can be judged. They are the proliferation of human-trafficking gangs in Libya, thousands dying needlessly chasing after Europes grand invitation, terrorist attacks across Europe linked to the migration routes, stress on the Schengen zone, and the rise of a populist backlash that powered Brexit and alternative parties all over Europe. Seeing all this, European leaders are at least open to change. Things that cannot continue going as they are, dont.

READ MORE: Listen to Eastern Europe: Muslim Migration Waves Are a Pressing Problem Viktor Orban on Hungary and the Crisis of Europe Terrorism Is Not Random: We Must Look at Muslim Immigration with Clear Eyes

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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On Migration, Europe Is Admitting the Truth to Itself - National Review

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The new French presidents call for the greatest humanity in dealing with the escalating refugee crisis appears to have fallen on deaf ears after his interior minister Grard Collomb quickly ruled out creating a welcome centre for migrants on a recent visit to Calais.

Mr Collomb pledged to deploy extra riot police to avoid the area becoming an abscess that would lure migrants in after dismantling the Jungle camp.

His tough comments came just a day after centrist president Emmanuel Macron said he would speed up the asylum request process from more than a year to just six months.

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Local papers have suggested the pair are playing good cop bad cop over the issue, which could spark cracks in the presidents very new cabinet team.

Mr Macron recently hailed German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a European saviour who saved the continents collective dignity with her open-door immigration policy.

And standing next to her during last weeks EU summit, Mr Macron emphasised the importance of solidarity in managing the migrant crisis.

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Mr Macron pointed out that the EU failed to react when the crisis began.

He said: We did not listen to Italy at the beginning announcing the coming wave and then Italy and Greece were severely disturbed.

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Then it was host countries which were disturbed. There was a lack of European solidarity to share the burden. It is a fact.

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Macron facing power struggle as French president undermined over Calais migrant policy - Express.co.uk

ZAWIJA It's been 10 days since we've joined the patrol along the coast with Commander Al Bija of the Libyan Coast Guard. Our 16-meter-long vessel is cruising along the most dangerous border in the world.

According to the German government figures, nearly one million refugees and migrants are currently in Libya, which has become the gateway country-of-choice for people seeking to reach Europe by sea.

The dangers mentioned are not hard to see: in fact, we have been shot at with automatic weapons by smugglers, trying to protect their human merchandise from being rescued by the Libyan Coast Guard when they are in trouble out at sea.

The European Union believes it can stop the flow of refugees from entering by being more active in Libya. At an EU summit in Malta in February, European leaders called on the Libyan Coast Guard to close off the seas, intercept the refugees and take them to reception camps in Libya. But the reality is that the Libyan Coast Guard, in waters west of the capital of Tripoli, where many of the human traffickers have their bases, consists of exactly one single boat and 37 crew members.

Their commanding officer, Commander Al Bija, also happens to be a feared warlord. At the age of 30, Al Bija is a hero to some, a criminal to others and to some, even a murderer. But he is also the only chance for Europe to foil the human traffickers work in Libya, an increasingly unstable country without a central government, army or police.

No one can pass us unseen, says Al Bija in his headquarters in Zawija, west of Tripoli, a few days before we came under fire at sea. We are the only functioning Coast Guard in western Libya.

Al Bija has been working the coastal region with the patrol trawler, called Tileel, a few rubber dinghies and his modest group for two years. Our mission, he says, is to rescue refugees from distress at sea, find human traffickers and, if necessary, kill them.

The crew has taken more than 37,000 people from the Mediterranean back to Libya since August, 2015, says the Libyan Defense Ministry.

The EU decided to train the Libyan Coast Guard in armed border patrols, as well as techniques for dealing with refugees on land, in order to try to end the nefarious business of the traffickers. Brussels provided 200 million euros to the efforts, a commitment matched by the Italian government during the first phase of the plan.

We do not need to be trained, we know how to navigate, fight and kill, Al Bija responds. (But) if we are going to do Europes dirty work then Europe will have to pay us with a boat that can hold up to 1,000 people, speed boats, spare parts, fuel and wages.

But is he really one of the good guys? Or perhaps he's a double agent?

"I know the right people, says the Commander

In any case, Europe does not have much choice other than to trust Al Bija. Six years since the fall of Muammar al-Gaddafi there is very little hope that Libya will become a democracy. The peoples brigades that rose in rebellion against the dictator have formed into plundering militias, occupying old ministry buildings. The government, on which Europes hopes rest, barely exercises any control over Libya. The Prime Minister, appointed by the UN, has not been recognized by the Libyan parliament. Meanwhile, the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) has conquered several cities. Circa 1,700 rival militias fight each other and are in active control of cities, petroleum refineries, oil fields and the million-dollar trade in humans wanting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

It would take hundreds of very well trained men to rid the coast of traffickers, says Al Bija. But who should choose them? The weak government? The EU? Me. I know the right people, says the Commander.

A former student at the Naval Academy in Tripoli had to give up his studies in 2011 due to the revolution. He has been severely wounded several times while fighting Gaddafis troops as a rebel and was flown to Germany to be treated for his wounds. After returning to Libya to fight for his mother, father, family, clan, tribe, in the summer of 2015 Al Bija, his nom de guerre, and his fellow revolutionaries decided to do something great and take the harbor of Zawija from a rival militia. They were successful. Once in control, they renovated the headquarters and fixed up the patrol boat, designed their own coat of arms, assigned military ranks, gave themselves the name the Libyan Coast Guard of Zawija and started to patrol the Mediterranean.

Their enemy: human traffickers. These are assumed to be organized into several groups around one large network along the Libyan coast. Traffickers hold captive refugees and migrants who cannot afford the journey across the Mediterranean immediately, beat them, rape them, torture and murder them in private prisons. An internal report of the German embassy in Niger recently spoke of concentration camp-like conditions.

But why does Al Bija risk his life? I have a good heart. Should I let my brothers drown in the sea? But he also says that the clans [of traffickers] earn millions, buy modern weapons, bulletproof vehicles, tanks. They will control or displace or kill us if we do not attack their business.

And it is in this opaque world of warlords, militias and organized human trafficking that Europe must face down, imposing its border management to stop the migration to Europe. But is a warlord like Al Bija really the right partner for such an enterprise? He forcefully took control of a large territory that was not under state control any longer. His power is not based on political legitimization but his troops firepower.

Gray areas abound along this coast. Italian journalist Nancy Porsia, an expert on emigration out of North Africa, says she is sure that the Coast Guard of the Libyan Navy is involved in human trafficking. Colonel Tarek Shanboor of the Ministry of the Interior in Tripoli, adds: we do have traffickers in our midst, which is a real problem.

Al Bija calls these reports lies spread by traffickers. He and his men take the refugees and migrants that they apprehend at sea to special camps of the UN-solicited government. We visited one of these camps, the Surman womens camp, and saw the misery reigning there with our own eyes. When the militia guards left the hall for a few moments one of the women appealed to us, saying that they were repeatedly raped, showed us her bloodstained clothing and begged us to help them. But there was nothing we could do. The guard returning commented on how happy the women are to be in the camp, but that Europe would have to start paying for their upkeep, for mobile toilets and showers, tampons, pampers.

In the face of this reality, we could see that the more Africans were herded together in these camps and the worse the condition, the stronger the basis of negotiation for the militias with Europe was.

How the EU will respond is still unclear

The Libyan government is operating 24 internment camps for migrants, according to the United Nations. Europe wants to utilize the already existing infrastructure to turn these camps into humane reception camps and close down those that are intolerable. How exactly the EU is planning to force the militias to abandon their camps is unclear.

They leave us here to rot, says a man we see inside a cell cramped with other prisoners in Annasser Camp in Zawija.

At the moment, the journey to Italy costs up to $2,500 per person. If you now take the 181,000 people who fled to Italy in 2016, in addition to the 5,000 people who died in the attempt, Libyan traffickers made approximately $450 million in 2016.

The "Door to Europe" on the Italian island of Lampedusa Photo: Carlo Alfredo Clerici

Although the fee is payable prior to departure, traffickers are not happy if the police boats intercept their freight. Those captured, once they're released, will warn others of their traffickers.

In Libya, where everything is a fight for mere survival, no one puts their cards on the table willingly. Until the very end we were not sure who Al Baji really was. The man who was wounded as a rebel, recuperated in Germany, but returned to Libya to fight for his family, his clan and his tribe with a captured boat and a handful of men to conquer the coastal regions of Libya. One thing, however, is certain. He has managed to carve out a place for himself in war-torn Libya to make a profit from rescuing refugees. When asked how he actually makes his money he says that they seize illegal Egyptian and Tunisian fishing vessels and keep them until the owners can pay the fine. But he adds that he, and all of his men, have normal professions although they spend 300 days a year on sea. He adds, for example, that he is also a horse breeder.

It seems from this vantage point that the most important pillars on which the EU deal with Libya rests are crumbling already. The Coast Guard is littered with dubious staff and the secure reception camps are nothing more than warehouses, occupied by militias and used to house helpless people who are nothing more than a resource in the war for Libya and the millions of euros that Europe is willing to pay.

There are no fast and easy solutions, says Martin Kobler, German Special Envoy to the United Nations for Libya. If that were the case, many would remain in the oil-rich nation and work, just like in Gaddafis days, instead of taking to the boats. And the human traffickers would be short of freight to ferry across the Mediterranean.

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Can A Libyan Warlord Help Europe Solve The Migrant Crisis? - Worldcrunch

2016 was an extraordinarily deadly year for migrants: 5,000 people perished in the Mediterranean Sea, vastly exceeding the death toll of 3,700 in 2015. And in the first six months of 2017, more than 1,000 deaths have been recorded.

Year after year, we see the same dynamics at work. Migrants flee conflict and instability in the Middle East and Africa trying to reach Europe. In order to avoid the land checkpoints established by European governments, they take their lives into their hands, setting off across the Mediterranean in makeshift boats, often operated by unscrupulous people smugglers.

This is not a recent tragedy; migrant advocate organisations have been recording the death toll of these people since the 1990s. But now they don't simply tally up the dead, they directly intervene by rescuing migrants at sea.

It all started in 2014 with the discontinuation of the Italian navy's humanitarian and military operation Mare Nostrum. The cost of the operation was too high for the Italian government, which was unable to convince its European partners to join its efforts.

The program was replaced by operation Triton, financed by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). But NGOs feared that the change would lead to the deaths of thousands of migrants: Triton has a lower budget than Mara Nostrum and only operates in a small section of the waters where boats are liable to sink.

Above all, Triton was primarily designed for border control, rather than saving lives.

Launched by a couple of Italian-American millionaires, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) was the first private organisation of its kind to charter a boat. In 2015, Doctors without Borders (MSF, short for Mdecins Sans Frontires) followed their lead, as did Save the Children in 2016.

Across Europe, citizens came together to create new organisations such as SOS Mditerrane, Sea Watch, Life Boat Project, Sea Eye, Jugend Rettet in Germany, Boat Refugee in the Netherlands, and Proactiva Open Arms in Spain.

The number of different authorities and organisations involved has made rescue operations more complex. Since maritime law states that any vessel close to a boat in distress must come to its aid, the relevant maritime authorities coordinate rescue efforts for each zone. In the central Mediterranean Sea, it is most often the Italian coast guard, part of the Ministry of Transportation, that grants NGOs permission to intervene.

But, in reality, it's often the NGOs who find a sinking boat and contact the coast guard themselves.

Once the migrants are rescued, they are taken to an Italian port, under the authority of another government department (Ministry of the Interior), who selects their destination, registers them and directs them towards " hotspots " - migrant centres set up by the European Union.

In Italy, the role of NGOs in rescue operations has created controversy. In December 2016, the Financial Times highlighted Frontex's frustration.

The European border force has reservations about sea rescue operations. In its opinion, letting migrants believe that all they need to do is take to the sea to be rescued and welcomed to Europe opens up the floodgates.

According to the British newspaper, Frontex has evidence that some NGOs are in contact with smugglers and direct them towards zones where migrants have the best chance of being rescued. In other words, they claim these NGOs are accomplices to human traffickers and are therefore guilty of the crime of assisting illegal immigration.

The report led Italian authorities to investigate. In May 2017, the Italian senate's parliamentary inquiry concluded that NGOs constitute a "pull factor" and that they should cooperate more with maritime police operations. The Catania chief prosecutor nevertheless stated that there was no proof of wrongdoing.

The Italian government itself is divided. While the minister for foreign affairs has denounced the NGOs, the prime minister has thanked rescuers for their help, and the coast guard says it supports "politically neutral" maritime activities.

International organisations have also taken a stand. The UN High Commission for Refugees defended the NGOs, while the International Organization for Migration gave partial support to Frontex's arguments, while highlighting the importance of saving lives in the Mediterranean.

On June 9 2017, researchers Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani published the report Blaming the Rescuers. Using empirical evidence, it refuted Frontex's claims and pointed out that the border force also accused operation Mare Nostrum of encouraging illegal immigration.

Yet the end of the Mare Nostrum operation, far from limiting fatalities, led to an increase in deaths. In the 2016 report Death by Rescue, these same researchers measured fatalities during Mediterranean crossings, comparing the number of people lost at sea with the number of people who reached Europe. They showed that it was far more dangerous to migrate during the Triton operation than Mare Nostrum. Increases in fatalities and the risk of death during a crossing are therefore not due to the presence of rescuers but rather to the lack of rescue operations.

These reports accuse Frontex of ending the Mare Nostrum operation knowing that it was saving lives. They also claim that it is now doing the same thing with NGOs, attempting to get rid of them knowing full well that their absence would make the journey riskier.

The debate highlights contradictions in European migration policies, which are creating a "prohibition effect". If it is impossible to procure something legally (access to Europe), demand shifts to the riskier back market, profiting unscrupulous intermediaries.

Strengthening border control, especially on land, automatically results in risky boat journeys and therefore a rise in the number of deaths at sea. And the humanitarian aim of saving lives inevitably runs up against government efforts to control immigration.

Behind the controversy lies the question of legitimacy. Who has the right to intervene and come to migrants' rescue?

Frontex defends the right of governments to control their borders and exercise sovereignty. NGOs have another perspective: if national governments are unable to uphold certain fundamental rights, such as the right to life, civil society must intervene.

This philosophy is nothing new. State inaction is also the reason many NGOs have become involved in the fight against poverty, for instance, and the defense of minorities. What is different is its application to questions of sovereignty, which is normally reserved for nation states.

To an extent, the crisis in the Mediterranean enables NGOs to challenge state control over borders. And it's understandable that this creates resistance. But if governments wish to defend their monopoly, they should find better arguments than those put forward by Frontex.

Greater solidarity in Europe would help avoid situations like the one that led to the discontinuation of the Mare Nostrum operation. Following the Dublin Convention, countries such as Greece and Italy are continuously at the front line, which is neither fair nor sustainable.

In this context, we can see the limits of the current political approach to migration, founded on an obsession with security and a denial of fundamental rights.

With calm weather conditions ideal for sea crossings, the northern summer is almost upon us. The migration debate is only just beginning and it brings with it the need for a basic rethinking of European migratory policies.

Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast for Word.

Antoine Pcoud, Professeur de sociologie, Universit Paris 13 - USPC and Marta Esperti, Doctorante en sociologie, Universit Paris 13 - USPC

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Are NGOs Responsible For The Migration Crisis In The Mediterranean? - Huffington Post India