Measures against migrant pressure: Ministerial meeting between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece

Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece will closely monitor developments in every part of Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The three countries will also exchange information regarding the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. This will help analyse the risk of increasing migration flows through Turkey toward Europe.

In a first-of-its-kind meeting, the Interior Ministers of Turkey and Bulgaria, along with the Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum, confirmed that over a year and three months of intensified operational cooperation, migration pressure has decreased by around 70%.

Fifteen months after Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece signed a trilateral cooperation mechanism at a professional and operational level, the ministers found that, in Bulgaria alone, 48 criminal groups involved in organising trafficking networks were apprehended last year. Similar groups were dismantled in Greece and Turkey, leading to a 70% reduction in illegal trafficking in human beings.

“We need to be more operational, so that we can promptly conduct our analyses regarding the developments both in Bulgaria and the Middle East. Regarding everything related to illegal migration and international organized crime, we should be highly responsive to the circumstances we are facing,” said Atanas Ilkov, Bulgaria’s caretaker Minister of Interior.

Bulgaria and Greece together need to ensure a stable security environment in the Schengen area and part of this is curbing illegal crossings of the EU's external borders as well as countering drug trafficking.

“This is the signal we are sending, based on good cooperation with Turkey and the commitments they have made to us and our colleagues for an effective counteraction to these processes,” added the Interior Minister.

The heads of border and operational services from the three countries will meet in Sofia at the end of the month and the three ministers will meet again by the end of April at the latest, also in Bulgaria.