Turkey
visa deal will increase risk of terrorist attacks, EU report reveals
Matthew Holehouse,
brussels Peter Dominiczak, political editor
17 MAY 2016 •
7:08AM
Terrorists are more
likely to attack European countries as a result of a controversial
deal to allow Turkish citizens to travel across the continent without
visas, EU leaders have admitted.
Foreign terrorists
and organised criminals are “expected” to seek Turkish passports
to reach continental Europe “as soon as” the visa waiver program
comes into force, a European Commission report said.
The disclosure came
as Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, warned that the
decision to give Turkey visa-free travel is “perverse” and
compared it to “storing gasoline next to the fire”.
Sir Richard also
said that the EU will face a "populist uprising" if it
fails to control migration.
Turkey’s 75
million citizens will have the right to enter the Schengen zone for
up to 90 days at a time with biometric passports from the end of June
if Ankara passes key anti-corruption and terrorism reforms.
The decision was
part of a hastily-assembled deal brokered by Brussels to halt the
flow of migrants from Turkey to Greece.
However, the
European Commission report acknowledges the “increased mobility
into the Schengen area of criminals and terrorists who are citizens
of Turkey, or who are foreigners based in Turkey.”
It came as:
Sir Lynton Crosby,
the architect of the Conservative Party’s general election victory,
warns that the Leave campaign "should spend less time arguing”
about televised debates and instead focus on “delivering a clearer
and simpler message” to voters.
A referendum poll
for this newspaper finds that Remain is now ahead on 51 per cent,
with Leave trailing on 45 per cent of the vote.
A new analysis
found that European immigrants to Britain cost taxpayers £3 million
a day last year.
Boris Johnson said
that EU migration is driving up A&E waiting times, as he claimed
a Brexit would help end the "scandal" of long queues for
emergency care.
George Osborne said
that a Brexit will see the UK miss out on £200billion a year of
trade by 2030 and compared Leave campaign to conspiracy theorists who
think the moon landing was faked.
The European
Commission has recently also proposed visa-free travel deals with
Kosovo, Ukraine and Georgia, which are blighted by organised crime.
“The proposed visa
liberalisation for Turkish citizens travelling to the EU could
potentially have an impact on the terrorist risk in the EU in as far
as the movement of terrorists of Turkish citizenship to and from the
Schengen area is concerned,” the report states.
Crosby
Sir Lynton Crosby,
the architect of the Conservative election victory
The fingerprints of
people entering Europe with a visa are logged on a single database
that can be searched by counter-terrorism investigators, an extra
level of security that is removed by the deal.
Kosovo has produced
up to 300 fighters in Syria and Iraq, the highest per capita rate in
Europe, a separate report warns, adding the government is poorly
equipped to intercept them.
“Visa
liberalisation could also have an impact on undetected entry into the
EU of persons from Kosovo who return from war zones where they had
joined terrorist networks,” the report says.
The Turkish mafia,
which traffics vast volumes of drugs, sex slaves, illegal firearms
and refugees into Europe may undergo “direct territorial expansion
towards the EU” as a result of the deal, the report admits.
“Suspect individuals being allowed to travel to the Schengen
territory without the need to go through a visa request procedure
would have a greater ability to enter the EU without being noticed.”
It says reforms to
the Turkish police, judiciary and counter-terrorism apparatus that
are a pre-condition of the visa deal will help “mitigate” the
risk.
The Turkish
authorities have agreed to provide training and “ethical codes on
anti-corruption” for staff issuing passports and citizenship
papers, amid warnings that they will be sought-after by terrorists.
“It can be
expected that, as soon as Turkish citizens will obtain visa-free
entry to the EU, foreign nationals will start trying to obtain
Turkish passports in order to pretend to be Turkish citizens and
enter the EU visa free, or use the identities of Turkish citizens, or
to obtain by fraud the Turkish citizenship,” it says.
“This possibility
may attract not only irregular migrants, but also criminals or
terrorists.”
Brussels
The headquarters of
the European Commission in Brussels
Kosovo is also route
for the smuggling of reactivated firearms, millions of which are left
over from the Balkans war, into Europe.
“An assessment of
the security impact of visa liberalisation for Kosovo reveals that
drug trafficking, the facilitation of irregular migration,
corruption, money-laundering and fraud, trafficking in human beings,
the illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons and returning
foreign terrorist fighters pose potential threats to the European
Union’s internal security,” the report says.
In a major
intervention on Monday Sir Richard, who served in the security
services for nearly 40 years, warned that millions of migrants could
come to the EU in the coming years.
"If Europe
cannot act together to persuade a significant majority of its
citizens that it can gain control of its migratory crisis then the EU
will find itself at the mercy of a populist uprising, which is
already stirring," he said.
Dearlove
Richard Dearlove,
the former head of the Secret Intelligence Service
He criticised the
decision to give visa-free travel to Turkey and warned that the
choice in the upcoming referendum is to either “fight for
fundamental change” or “conclude the EU in its present form has
run its historical course and is heading the way of history”.
In an apparent
criticism of the Government-backed Remain campaign, he added: “The
establishment answers makes light of the EU's current malaise and has
heaped on us the arguments for staying and sticking with what we
have.”
Eurosceptics seized
on Sir Richard's comments. Penny Mordaunt, a defence minister, said:
"There is no doubt that the migration crisis, and the EU’s
complete failure to get control of it, is putting British citizens at
risk.
"As Sir Richard
Dearlove warned today, this failure is also leading to the prospect
of populist uprisings across the continent.”
Idomeni
A man walks
alongside railway tracks at Idomeni, Greece, the main crossing point
into Macedonia
A European
Commission spokesperson said that 2,525,000 biometric passports
required for travel to the EU had been issued by Kosovo, Georgia and
Ukraine and none by Turkey so far.
The spokesperson
said the EU was tightening the rules around foreign travellers,
including a new US-style visa computer and entry-and-exit
registrations. "Visa liberalisation is always conditioned and
can be withdrawn if it is abused. That's why the visa rules already
have a suspension clause which the Commission is now making quicker
and easier to trigger.”
Meanwhile, in an
article in this newspaper, Sir Lynton warns that “time may be
running out for the Leave camp to make the case for Brexit as the
Remain campaign’s position is consolidating”.
He calls on the
Leave campaign, which includes Michael Gove and Mr Johnson, to
“dramatically step up its efforts” if it is to “reach, retain
and motivate its supporters before polling day”.
Sir Lynton is highly
critical of the Leave campaign’s decision last week to repeatedly
criticise a decision by Downing Street that ensured David Cameron
will take part in a TV “debate” against Nigel Farage.
“Perhaps some of
those behind the scenes of the Leave campaign should spend less time
arguing about whether Nigel Farage should have a TV platform and more
time finding and delivering a clearer and simpler message in support
of their case,” he says. “Something which seems missing as they
get bogged down in process stories.”
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