Some of the Syrians who have received subsidiary protection in Germany| Photo: picture-alliance /dpa / H. Schmidt
The German newspaper Die Welt reported that Germany accepted almost 10,000 migrants and asylum seekers between 2016 and March 2020 under the EU-Turkey deal. The numbers were released following a question to the interior ministry from a member of the liberal FDP party.
On an EU-wide comparison, Germany has taken in the most number of migrants from Turkey under the EU-Turkey deal since 2016, reported the German newspaper Die Welt on Wednesday, July 8. In total, Germany has accepted 9,967 migrants from Turkey, writes news agency dpa.
Under the terms of the EU-Turkey deal, EU countries agreed to take quotas of Syrian refugees from Turkey if they could return ‘inadmissable’ (not allowed to seek asylum in the EU) asylum seekers who arrived in Greece back to Turkey, which is considered a safe country.
France has taken in second greatest numbers of Syrians under deal
As of March this year, EU countries overall took in 26,835 migrants under the deal, which was signed in 2016. France has taken the second greatest number of migrants in, but a little less than half the numbers Germany has accepted wrote dpa.
The report was based on a question that a liberal party FDP politician made to Germany’s interior ministry, according to the news agency Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND).
The migrants and asylum seekers were taken from camps in Turkey, which hosts more than 3.5 million people who have fled Syria since the beginning of the conflict in 2011.
EU figures
Figures quotes by dpa state that the Netherlands had “admitted 4,571 people,” while Finland and Sweden took in just shy of 2,000 people each and Spain following with 766.
Austria, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Portugal all took in fewer people “in the low three-digit range”. Some countries, including Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, have not yet taken any Syrians in, reports dpa.
On the German interior ministry website, under a section entitled “EU resettlement program” the ministry states that it has up to 3,000 more places set aside under the EU-Turkey deal in 2020 alone.
A spokesperson from the interior ministry said that “each member state makes its own decision on the admission of migrants according to the EU-Turkey pact,” cites dpa.
With dpa, Die Welt, RND
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