Report by President Donald Tusk to the European Parliament on the March European Council meeting

On 19 January, I said here in the European Parliament, that the EU had no more than two months to save the Schengen zone. And that the March European Council would be the last moment to see if our strategy worked. If it didn't, we would face grave consequences such as the collapse of Schengen. We have used these two months as best we could. In this time I called two summits, dedicated almost exclusively to this issue.

On 7 March, the European Council took three important decisions. The first one concerned the ending of the 'wave-through approach', which meant bringing the flow of irregular migrants along the Western Balkans route to a close. This decision was based on the assumption that a European solution without respect for European law, and above all, without respect for the Schengen borders code, is not possible.

The second decision was on a massive increase of humanitarian aid to Greece. We set up a new emergency instrument to allow €300 million sent already this year, in the first place to Greece, but also to other Member States overwhelmed by the refugee crisis. We also offered further assistance in order to manage the external border in Greece, including those with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania. Not to mention other forms of support from Member States.

The third decision concerned sending back migrants from Greece to Turkey, those migrants who are not in need of international protection. Leaders also welcomed the presence of NATO in the Aegean to enhance intelligence and surveillance activities, while Turkey agreed to take back all irregular migrants apprehended in Turkish waters.

At our first meeting in March, I was also asked by leaders to take forward new proposals made by Turkey and work out a common European position with a view to reaching an agreement later that month.

That agreement was finally reached at the European Council on 18 March. We agreed that all irregular migrants coming from Turkey into Greek islands as from 20 March, would be returned to Turkey. The implementation would be phased-in gradually and based on the so-called one-for-one principle. This is what has begun to happen.

For me, the two key elements of the agreement were:

First, to guarantee compliance with all EU and international laws by ensuring that each and every migrant arriving in Europe would be treated individually. This included the respect for the principle of non-refoulement and excluded any kind of collective expulsions. The Commission gave a positive assessment of the legality of the agreement and I want to express my thanks to Jean-Claude and his team for their work and contribution.

Second, as regards accession talks, we took on board Cypriot concerns. The approach to this issue was, to my mind, a test of Europe's solidarity towards one of its Member States. And Europe passed this test. On the one hand, some were tempted to force Cyprus to make huge concessions. It is quite understandable. But I maintained from the start that we could not sacrifice the most fundamental interests of a Member State, in this case Cyprus, on the altar of a migration deal with Turkey.

We are aware of all the tasks and difficulties in resolving this crisis. From the beginning, I have thought it is a dangerous illusion to believe that there exists an ideal and one-hundred-percent effective solution. I want to say to all the seekers of the political Holy Grail: you will never find it. Convenient and easy solutions are hard to find in politics, and in this case, they are virtually impossible. What we are faced with is a perpetual, tenuous and multi-dimensional effort. In fact, something like a never-ending story.

The solutions we are putting into practice are not ideal and will not end our work. Also, the deal with Turkey is not perfect and we are fully aware of its risks and weaknesses. We did everything we could to ensure that the agreement respects human dignity but I am conscious of the fact that everything depends on how it will be implemented. The deal with Turkey and closing the Western Balkans route raise doubts of an ethical nature, and also legal, as in the case of Turkey. I share some of these doubts, too. They can only be dispelled by putting the solutions, as they were agreed in every detail, into practice.

While taking into account all the above-mentioned doubts, and even sharing some of them, I would like to recall that the main goal we decided on was to stem irregular migration to Europe. As I have frequently said, without this, and without restoring control over European migration policy, we would be unable to prevent political catastrophes. Here I mean the collapse of Schengen; loss of control over our external borders with all its implications for our security; political chaos in the EU, a widespread feeling of insecurity; and ultimately, the triumph of populism and extremism. Today, everyone has finally understood how high the stakes were, and how high they still continue to be.

We need to realise that external circumstances will not work to our advantage. We have heard so many times that the only way to stem irregular migration is by solving the root causes of this crisis, namely by stabilising the world around us. I want to state very clearly that this had too often sounded like an alibi not to do anything at all, here in Europe. I hope we will finally understand that Europe doesn't hold golden keys in its hands to help solve all the problems of this world. Let me say more, we were so preoccupied with looking for the key to save the world, that for a time we lost the key to solve our own problems. This crisis has eventually shown, that we must regain our feeling of responsibility for ourselves, before we turn to repairing the world around us. In the two months when we concentrated on what we should do in our own backyard, we managed to achieve results.

And those results were possible even though we have not resolved the root causes of migration. Like hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, war in Syria, destabilisation in all region from Libya to Afghanistan. Not only haven't we solved all those crises, but new ones have appeared, such as tensions between Turkey and Russia, fighting in Nagorno Karabakh and dozens of terrorist attacks across many regions. It is humanly not possible to resolve all of them in a short-term perspective.

Obviously, no-one has a right to ignore the root causes of migration, as it is a challenge not only for Europe, but also for the whole global community. Therefore, we will work hard on our plan to address the migration crisis which we are going to present at the G7 Summit in Japan and G20 Summit in China. Our aim should be to increase the socio-economic development of the affected regions, notably education, health care, labour conditions, infrastructure and trade.

Let us not forget, however, that dealing with the root causes will be a constant and long-term effort. What is even worse, we must work with no guarantee of complete success, because it does not depend on our actions only. That is why we must be effective first and foremost where almost everything depends on us, namely managing the crisis on European soil.

Acting in this spirit, we must remember that the Balkan route is not the only one. And that other countries will also expect our cooperation and solidarity, not only Greece and Bulgaria. I have in mind here the Central Mediterranean route. The numbers of would-be migrants in Libya are alarming. This means that we must be prepared to help and show solidarity to Malta and Italy, should they request it. It will not be possible to simply copy the solutions we have applied in the Balkans, not least because Libya is not Turkey. As regards the Balkan route, we undertook action much too late, which resulted among others in the temporary closure of the borders inside Schengen. This is why our full cooperation with Italy and Malta today, is a condition to avoid this scenario in the future.

For far too long Europe was divided into advocates of security and advocates of openness. Today, we are finally building a synthesis of those two great needs: the need of security at our borders and the need for openness and tolerance. This is perhaps the biggest success of recent months. This synthesis will be one of the main battlefields of the future Europe, and it demands further actions. Let us not be afraid of this tension. In the critical moments of its history, Europe was victorious only when it coped with those two challenges simultaneously. To be true Europeans, we need to remain open and tolerant, yet at the same time tough and effective. Tensions are something natural. And the European phenomenon was the ability to transform these into positive energy. And this phenomenon needs to be preserved.