The package of measures agreed on Friday morning is now awaiting approval by the Turkish government, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) reported, referring to Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.
The initial plan consists of two parts: On the one hand, Germany should "grant asylum to 500,000 Syrian refugees registered in Turkey" over the course of 12 months, with other European countries participating in the plan on a voluntary basis. On the other hand, Turkey has to return and accept "all new migrants" illegally arriving from Turkey in Greece.
However, leader of the think tank "European Stability Initiative" (ESI) Gerald Knaus said that the EU is likely to be discussing "a much more radical idea" that "probably very soon will be announced". According to Knaus, the matter concerns a so called "coalition of the willing states" that is going to accept 900 Syrians a day without any preconditions.
The coalition of the willing states currently consists of Germany, Portugal and Sweden and will probably include Austria and some other European states. If the plan comes into force, it would mean that the EU, and in particular Germany, will still bear the main burden of the current refugee crisis.
The positive side is, however, that the EU states finally seem to have found a common solution to the problem. According to the newspaper, Merkel has a good chance of convincing other EU countries to follow suit.
Europe is struggling with an unprecedented migrant crisis as hundreds of thousands refugees flee their war-torn home countries in the Middle East and North Africa in search of asylum. The EU border agency Frontex recorded over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in the European Union in 2015.
