Germany's Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that she would press for implementation of the EU's migration deal with Turkey at a summit this week, saying the alternative of closing borders to limit the flow of refugees to Europe would have dire consequences for the bloc.
Speaking at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Merkel said the summit was not about agreeing new quotas for distributing refugees across Europe, saying this would be "laughable" given that less than 1,000 have been relocated under an existing scheme.
Instead, she said it was about whether the EU-Turkey pact could successfully tackle the causes of the migration or whether the bloc should "give up and instead close the Greek-Macedonian-Bulgarian border with all the consequences that would have for Greece, the European Union and the Schengen zone."
"I will fight with all my strength on Thursday and Friday for the EU-Turkey agenda as the right way to tackle this," she added.
