Viola SCORDIA – The Cheapest Fare for a Costly Voyage: A Perspective on the Deficiencies of the EU-Turkey Statement on Migration Management


The objective of the following research is to propose an alternative analysis of the structural deficiencies of the EU-Turkey Statement, which may have contributed to turkey’s decision of February 27th, 2020 to open the border with Greece.
Analysing the Statement as act of delegation, through the lenses of the Principal-Agent Model, two elements emerge as source for the agent’s frustration.
From a structural perspective what particularly contributed to the agent’s frustration is the non-implementation of the majority of the promised incentives despite the compliant execution of agency. In fact, most incentives promised by the EU in exchange of Turkey’s commitment were non-outcome-based. Thus, their implementation was not conditioned to the accomplishment of delegation, but to the fulfillment of strictly-defined procedures. Yet, focusing on the developing delegation politics of the Union, the question of burden-sharing again emerges as crucially divisive, preventing the activation of the only outcome-based incentive aiming at lifting part of Turkey’s increasing migratory pressure.
Thus, if Turkey’s decision to abandon agency can ultimately be attributed to events escaping the realm of migration-management, the Union as a delegating entity made crucial mistakes in the adaptation of the delegation contract to the context and recipient of delegation. Yet, formal adjustments would not address the question of burden-sharing which surprisingly emerges as an obstacle in the development of externalization policies.
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Isabelle Gilles (23 septembre 2020). Viola SCORDIA – The Cheapest Fare for a Costly Voyage: A Perspective on the Deficiencies of the EU-Turkey Statement on Migration Management. Observatoire de la vie politique turque. Consulté le 17 février 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/sn1g