EU's top diplomat says Brussels needs to improve its relations with Russia and Turkey

Amid growing tensions with Turkey over the humanitarian crisis caused by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to flood the Greek-Turkish border with migrants who are attempting to cross the international boundary illegally, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell said that Brussels needs to improve its relations with Moscow and Ankara.
Both countries have significant economic clout within the bloc, which inevitably plays a significant part in any decision that the European Union makes when formulating its policies.
“Our relations with these two countries are difficult for sure. But we have to improve them,” Borrell said in a statement, after a meeting with the EU27 Foreign Ministers held in Croatia’s capital, Zagreb.
The EU’s top diplomat welcomed the agreement, stating that “the cease-fire (between the Turks and Russians) is good news, and this is goodwill. Let’s see how it works.”
“Russia and Turkey are unavoidably part of our security and part of our most important concerns,” EU’s top diplomat said during Friday’s informal meeting (Gymnich) on Russia and Turkey.
“We have to increase engagement in selective issues in which we need to have a good partnership with Russia; energy, climate change, Arctic, Russia’s engagement in Syria and Libya,” Borrell added.
In regards to Turkey, Borrell said that the 27 members of the EU are willing to offer more money to Turkey, beyond the €6 billion agreed in 2016, and acknowledged the “burden” that Turkey has to endure while hosting millions of migrants each year.
Borrell mildly criticised Erdogan’s weaponisation of the migrants as a “means of applying pressure” on Brussels to agree to Turkey’s demands but offered no details as to how Brussels plans to push back against Erdogan’s tactics.
 
Tensions persist with Turkey
Erdogan’s government publicly told millions of migrants and asylum seekers on its soil that it won’t stand in the way if they want to head for Europe. That threatened a repeat of the mass movements in 2015 that helped fuel populism and anti-EU sentiment across the bloc.
Along with Charles Michel, the EU Council President, Borrell met with Erdogan on March 4 in Ankara to discuss the migration situation and the Syrian crisis. After a meeting in Brussels on March 9 ended in a deadlock, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the European Union of not sticking by earlier promises to provide funds to help look after the millions of migrants that Turkey hosts and allow visa-free travel to the EU for Turks.
Erdogan left the Brussels meeting without speaking to the media, while senior EU officials demanded that Turkey continue to implement the 2016 migrant deal.
Michel said Turkey and the EU have “different opinions on different things and that is why it is important to have a frank and open dialogue.” Officials from both sides will now work “to be certain we are on the same page.”
Cavusoglu, however, issued a veiled threat following Michel’s comments, telling Ankara’s state-run media that the “time is up for stalling Turkey.”
Erdogan said he expects to host the leaders of Germany and France on March 17 for talks on how to reboot the migrant deal, a summit that could also be attended by Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“If the EU delivers on its promises made to us, then we will, of course, respond in kind,” Erdogan said after he returned to Turkey. “We’ve been asking for a fair share of the burden. Unfortunately, they are not lifting visas for a country like Turkey but doing that for Latin American countries, the Balkans and Ukraine.”