(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Act 1 of the Kabuki theater being played out in Brussels went according to script. Talks between the European Union and Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the fate of millions of refugees in Turkey ended after each side had restated its position and its dissatisfaction with the other.
Then the Turkish president went home, to fulminate anew about the perfidious Europeans who shirk their responsibility in dealing with a terrible humanitarian crisis. European leaders, in turn, will rail against the cynical Erdogan who uses that crisis to extort more aid.
Both sides know that these histrionics, while they play well to domestic audiences, will not advance the plot. Soon, the curtain must rise on Act 2, in which the players move toward some kind of resolution. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already indicated a willingness to do so. Her European colleagues will take some persuading.
It would help everybody, but especially the refugees, if the players could move swiftly to Act 3, in which Europe pledges more resources, and Erdogan agrees — grudgingly, and with many vituperative asides for the gallery — to keep the refugees in Turkey. Since that is the only possible outcome, the sooner it comes the better.
Paying Erdogan off quickly will spare the refugees, who already endure unimaginable hardship, the indignity of being used as props in this ugly farce. To be herded to the European border in the false hope of salvation, and then be turned back by tear gas and bullets, is surely a form of human-rights abuse.
There is no gainsaying the scale of the crisis or the plight of the human beings it embroils: the UN Refugee Agency estimates there are more than 4.1 million refugees in Turkey, including 3.7 million from Syria. The recent fighting in Syria’s Idlib province set off a fresh exodus toward Turkey, and it is unlikely any of the hundreds of thousands now living in flimsy tents will invest much hope in the ceasefire agreed between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. When the fighting inevitably resumes, the press of desperate Syrians on Turkey’s border will grow exponentially.
Common decency requires the EU to improve the financial terms of the 2016 deal, in which the Europeans agreed to supply Turkey $6 billion in aid for the refugees. But since this is not a morality play, it is more likely they will respond to Erdogan’s blackmail: pony up, or I send the refugees your way.
For those who may have forgotten the paroxysms of fear and xenophobia that convulsed Europe five years ago, before Turkey stanched the flow of refugees, a sobering reminder came last week. As a few thousand refugees, egged on by Erdogan, tried to cross over into Greece, the government in Athens invoked an emergency clause of European treaties and suspended accepting asylum applications. There were threats of violence from local vigilantes, and dire warnings from far-right politicians across Europe.
Now imagine — as Erdogan would very much like you to — what happens when hundreds of thousands of Syrians (and Afghans, Central Asians and Iranians) try to make that crossing. The EU leadership can accuse Erdogan of weaponizing the refugees, but they must accept a large share of the blame for failing to reform their migration systems and leaving themselves open to Turkish threats.
There is just a sliver of hope that the Europeans will take some of the refugees, at least the most vulnerable. Perhaps the German plan for a “coalition of the willing” (rather than the entire EU membership) to take some more might be revisited. The consensus required for Erdogan’s other pressing demand, visa-free travel for Turkish citizens throughout the EU, is unlikely to materialize.
Erdogan might conceivably agree to a postponement on that item; beyond that, he has little room for maneuver. The president’s political fortunes have recently declined: His AK Party lost elections in most major cities last year, and former acolytes are setting up political parties to challenge him. His ambitions on the international stage have suffered reversals in Syria; for all the nationalist fervor he was able to orchestrate with his military thrusts there, the ceasefire deal with Putin has left many Turkish positions besieged and vulnerable.
Erdogan desperately needs a political win, and the Europeans, for the most part, desperately want to keep the refugees away from their borders.
So, gnash their teeth as they may, the Europeans will cough up the additional aid Erdogan wants. To imagine a different ending would require plot twists beyond the ken of a Kabuki writer, never mind the limited imagination of the players in this tawdry tableau.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Bobby Ghosh is a columnist and member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.
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