Readmission Agreements as a Return Policy Tools: The Case of EU-Turkey

After the European humanitarian refugee crisis in 2015, the externalisation in migration and asylum policy fields and cooperation with third countries - particularly migration control and management and return policy- became essential policy domains. As a part of the EU’s externalisation and return policy, one of the foremost tools appears as “readmission agreements”, which facilitate the removal of migrants who are irregularly present on the parties’ soil including the rejected asylum seekers. In this framework, this research analyses the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement (EUTRA, 2013) as the formal and second generation of readmission agreement and the EU-Turkey Statement (EUTS, 2016) as an informal, alternative and third-generation of readmission agreement. They represent both the old school of readmission agreements as one of the tools of long-lasting externalisation of the EU and the new alternative forms for formal readmission agreement as responding both the crisis period. They also appear as representative cases for future reference with their implications and draw lessons for future EU migration agreements with third countries. The paper focuses on the legal discussions, narratives and the implementation with the reflections from the multi-sited two fieldworks conducted in Ankara, İzmir, and Edirne during July 2010-March 2013 and June-November 2018. This longitudinal research provides insights regarding how both the EU and Turkey approached, instrumentalised and implemented the EUTRA and the EUTS and reflects the complexity of returns, usage conditionality by both sides and the changing power dynamics. The research contributes to elaborate Turkey’s response and position from a critical perspective regarding externalisation and conditionality and the EU’s response with alternative readmission tools for the similar non-EU Mediterranean countries for fostering the implementation of the agreements and in general the return policy. It also aims to understand what this strategic option implies in terms of costs, benefits, and effectiveness and revisits the initial readmission debates between two sides. The paper provides a historical perspective and longitudinal research, which makes it possible to see the changes after the crisis, and how migration as a foreign policy tool to oppose EU conditionality and how crisis politics turn to a common norm.