Eu-Turkey Statement: An Ambiguous Relationship

The EU-Turkey Statement was released on March 18, via the Council of the European Union’s webpage. Immediate and intensive negotiations began in October 2015, leading to the Statement delivered on the grounds of the European Council meeting on 17-18 March 2016. This problematic and controversial statement has been consistently proclaimed by the European Council. This paper focuses on the legal flaws and implementation challenges of the EU-Turkey deal. Regarding the procedure, EU norms for negotiating with third parties are laid forth in Article 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It refers to collaboration between the EU and a non-EU country. I analyse the General Court orders which are the first rulings on the EU-Turkey Statement and evaluate these decisions in light of EU legal regulations and literature in law. The article further situates the EU-Turkey Statement within recent developments in EU migration governance, demonstrating its continued relevance in light of post-2020 externalisation practices and recent CJEU case-law. By situating the EU-Turkey Statement within post-2020 EU migration governance and recent CJEU case-law, the article demonstrates how the Statement has evolved from a contested crisis measure into a structural template for contemporary EU externalisation practices.