German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), French President Emmanuel Macron and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have discussed the Syrian conflict and the situation at the EU's external borders via video conference today. Merkel and Macron had originally planned to travel to Istanbul, but the meeting was converted into a video conference because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Turkey wants to renegotiate the 2016 refugee package with the European Union. Until then, the Turkish government is keeping up the pressure with the help of open borders. From Turkey's point of view, the EU has not fulfilled its financial obligations in recent years. The EU has assured Turkey of up to six billion euros in 2016 in order to guarantee accommodation and care, especially for Syrian refugees. Erdoğan, however, accuses the EU of not having paid the promised sum. The EU denies this. According to the EU Commission, 4.7 billion euros have so far been contractually awarded and around 3.2 billion paid out.

Last week Erdoğan had already met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels. The occasion was the Turkish President's decision to no longer prevent refugees and migrants from entering the European Union. Erdoğan had declared at the end of February that the border to the EU was open. As a result, thousands of people had set off in the direction of Greece. There they were prevented from crossing the border by the Greek forces using tear gas and water cannons. According to the UN, about 13,000 people are waiting at the Turkish-Greek border. Clashes between the border police and the refugees occur almost daily.

"A new deal with the dictator Erdogan, who abuses refugees as hostages against Europe and thus puts their lives and health at risk, would be the absolute low point of European refugee policy," said Ulla Jelpke, spokeswoman for domestic policy of the DIE LINKE (German Left Party) parliamentary group, on today's Erdoğan Merkel-Macron telephone conference.

"Instead of making further concessions to the megalomaniacal ruler, the inhuman European policy of isolation must finally be ended and refugees must be accepted into Europe", demanded Jelpke and said; “The people on the border have been lured there by the Turkish state under false promises. Now it is important to organise the immediate reception of the people who have been trapped at the border by Turkish and Greek police. Erdoğan has shown once again: Turkey is everything but not a safe third country.”

It is simply "pathetic", she said, how Germany has repeatedly campaigned at European level for the "appeasement of the dictator".

"Economic interests obviously outweigh wars of aggression and systematic human rights violations for the German government. Thus the Federal Government makes itself the accomplice of the war criminal Erdoğan and helps him to constantly create new causes for flight,” Jelpke underlined.