The Greek side appeared satisfied with the outcomes of the EU summit on refugee held on Monday in Brussels, although no final decision was taken.

EU leaders announced that the final decision on refugee will be taken at next meeting to take place on March 17-18, where many points of Turkey’s proposal will be clarified.

Yesterday’s meeting highlighted the huge gap between the European countries regarding the way refugee issue should be dealt with. If the principle decisions are finalized, Greece will receive financial aid to address the humanitarian crisis and the number of refugees and immigrants packed on the Greek islands will be significantly decreased. However, it remains to be seen what kind of pressure Greece will get from the other EU countries on Greece-Turkey relations, since the neighboring country is ready to agree on reducing the refugee flow in exchange for financial aid, but also concessions related to its relations with Greece and Cyprus.

Although many states strongly disapproved Visegrad countries, as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also noted in his statements, EU leaders did not decide to open the northern border of Greece keeping the Western Balkans route closed.

However, the important development was that Turkey will take back the illegal immigrants. Moreover, for every Syrian readmitted by Turkey from the Greek islands, one Syrian refugee will be resettled from Turkey to the EU member states and the EU will completely evacuate refugees from the Greek islands, readmitting only those who crossed into the islands after a date to be determined.

Moreover, Mr. Tsipras stated after the end of the meeting that EU summit isolated those who want to isolate Greece.