&nbsp;European Council meeting (17-18 March 2016). Arrival of Martin SCHULZ, EP President, extracts from the press conference and statement

Brussels

statement

press conference

SCHULZ, Martin (S&D, DE)

meeting of the European Council

European Council meeting 17-18 March 2016 (T)

European Council meeting (17-18 March 2016): arrival of Martin SCHULZ, EP President, extracts from the press conference

Venue of the European Council meeting, (1 shot), Brussels, Belgium

Arrival of EP President Martin SCHULZ, (3 shots)

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, (During the Press conference): We have an investment gap of 300 Billion Euros per year in the EU, nobody is talking about that at the moment. There is has been no significant reduction of youth unemployment, we have no specific tanglible specific measures to be taken to combat tax avoidance, or tax fraud.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, (During the Press conference): Of course we do need an agreement with Turkey and I do hope that this agreement will comply with International legislation. Sometimes this discussion seems to be that the EU can conclude agreements with Turkey that don&rsquo;t comply with the international legislation but that is not possible.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, It is pressing, urgent to reach an agreement and if it is implemented as intended it will hit smugglers hard.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, In Idomeni people are stuck in mud, they are living in mud, in difficulties, this is why we need to reach an agreement with Turkey, at least they are doing something about this, they are talking to us, some countries are not even talking to us. And this is why like before common sense will prevail, we will reach an agreement, an agreement with Turkey about the return of migrants who reached the EU in using an irregular route, to ensure that they can return to Turkey and that they can resettled from there and that Member states are saying we will take these refugee. I know when you start asking me about numbers we will be talking about 72.000, 160,000, well these numbers are all well and good, but if we manage to redistribute 20.000 Idomeni would be done some good.