Outsourcing a Humanitarian Crisis to Turkey—Is That the European Thing to Do?

European countries plan to send thousands of refugees back to Turkey in a deal aimed at preventing people from trying to reach the EU by sea.

Refugees wait to pass through a Greek police cordon before crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near the village of Idomeni, Greece, on Dec. 4, 2015. Milos Bicanski/Getty Images

European countries plan to send thousands of refugees back to Turkey in a deal aimed at preventing people from trying to reach the EU by sea.

In what is being described as a “one in, one out” deal, anyone washing up on the shores of Greece will be sent back to Turkey, with one person being transferred from a Turkish refugee camp in their place.

But the deal, which is yet to be finalized, is flawed from the outset. Denying refugees the right to apply for asylum as they reach the EU is against international humanitarian law. And refusing protection to unarmed people fleeing war and persecution by sending them back to Turkey, a country under threat of a civil war, is unconscionable.

European Union leaders must be both desperate and clueless to pursue this. If the goal is to save the European Union from implosion, the question is on what terms will its unity be maintained?

Migrants and refugees walk through snow covered fields, after crossing the Macedonian border into Serbia near the village of Miratovac, on Jan. 18, 2016. More than one million migrants reached Europe in 2015, most of them refugees fleeing war and violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images