Turkey has European Union over a barrel

Even as people struggle and drown on the river border between Greece and Macedonia the proposed solution to Europe's migration crisis is dissolving before our very eyes. 

Many migrants are gathered at the Greek-Macedonian border

European Council President Donald Tusk's invitation letter to the two-day summit in Brussels this week admits gloomily "the catalogue of issues to be resolved before we can conclude an agreement is long".
Turkey is the key, and Turkey is the lock. The youthful, populous, problematic Muslim country is a practical conundrum and an existential threat to the EU's self-definition, seen by some as the classic shadow image, the threat of the other.


Before I get carried away, it was obvious from the start that the deal was flawed, forced and bound to be opposed with vehemence. Left and right, ancient and modern, north and south are joined in rebellion against Mrs Merkel and the planned EU deal with Turkey.

It is not so much snagged on a nail, fraying at the edges, as already unravelled before the summit, little more than a pile of wool lying on the floor. To pick up the threads and knit it into anything serviceable will be a painstaking labour of necessity.

Perhaps it has already done its job. The EU does not thrive on surprises, and this deal came as a brutal shock. That in politics can be a masterstroke. But to be so it has to delight, rather than dismay, those who are taken unawares.