6 reasons why the EU-Turkey refugee deal could really hurt refugees

After the conclusion of Turkey's awaited European Union summit on Mar. 7, the deal the two parties agreed upon regarding the burdens of the refugee crisis both share was hailed by EU leaders as a "game-changer" and a "breakthrough," among other celebratory phrases.

Yet right from the get-go, a variety of serious concerns were raised regarding the controversial deal, which will be finalized in an EU summit on Mar. 17-18.

The core of the EU-Turkey refugee plan is that all new "irregular migrants" (refugees who seek out people smugglers) arriving in Greece from Turkey will be returned and for every Syrian returned, another Syrian already in Turkey will be resettled in the EU.

In return, Turkey will get visa-free travel access to the EU for its citizens by June. It will also receive its previously promised three billion euros from the EU to help manage the crisis at an earlier date and finally, new talks on Turkey's EU membership will be initiated.

The EU-Turkey refugee deal is flawed for a number of ethical, legal and practical reasons.

The main concern of the policy Turkey and the EU agreed upon is to stop the flow of refugees arriving in Europe, not to protect them.The deal allows the EU to only take in a number of Syrian refugees depending on the number of refugees who risk their lives and get nothing in return.

Moreover, forcibly turning away very large numbers of people seeking asylum is inherently flawed, because it threatens refugees' right to protection, which the EU is obligated to abide by under its own laws.

Under the 1951 UN convention on refugees, a treaty that the EU prides itself on promoting in the aftermath of World War II, the compulsory mass expulsion of people is illegal, which the UN has already pointed out . In addition, it is also illegal under Article 19 of the EU's charter of fundamental rights, which outlines its laws.

The refugees who make the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean include Syrian refugees, as well as refugees fleeing different crises from Iraq, Afghanistan and many African and Asian countries. Here, they are cornered into the label of "economic migrants" and not included in the resettlement policy.

This means the deal doesn't acknowledge that refugees other than those fleeing the Syrian war deserve asylum, which again, is a notion countered by basic international and EU asylum laws. The likely scenario is that they will return to Turkey and then be returned to their home countries.

The media was quick to label the deal as the "one in, one out" deal, which is troubling but accurately describe the policy.

The one-for-one scheme the deal is proposing furthers the view that refugees, despite their varying nationalities and uniquely heartbreaking stories, are just one unnamed mass threatening the Western World's resources. It doesn't allow refugees to be seen as individuals, just numbers.

One impractical aspect of the deal is that it only deals with refugees using the Turkey-Greece Mediterranean route. This does not help in terms of solving the crisis because there are multiple other routes for reaching Europe.

It's likely refugees will turn to other routes, such as getting to Europe through Bulgaria, the Black Sea, crossing the Mediterranean to Italy or even crossing the Arctic to reach Norway.

The deal states that Syrian refugees would be resettled in the EU, but it doesn't state which EU states would take in refugees or how many they would take. Details like these are expected to be addressed in the upcoming meeting. However, the deal makes the refugees vulnerable to the varying and changing policies of the EU's different states.

Some of these states are very resistant to accepting any number of refugees or immigrants. Moreover, a 2015 resettlement deal, in which the EU states agreed with much struggle to resettle 160,000 migrants, ended up with only 660 finding homes in European countries.

The EU-Turkey refugee deal still has a bit of time and a few meetings before it is set in stone, but its central concepts could be sidestepping what should arguably be the main goal of attempting to solve the refugee crisis: Protecting the refugees.