On Tuesday, Council President Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Turkey to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The message before the meeting was simple: the EU is happy to cooperate, but Turkey must also offer, not least in the field of human rights.
- It is up to Turkey to take advantage of this opportunity, says Michel at a short press conference afterwards.
The EU hopes for continued migration cooperation
The main question is about what continued migration cooperation can look like.
Since 2016, the EU has sent over billions to support the care of Syrian refugees in Turkey, in exchange for Turkey acting against the smuggling of refugees and migrants into the EU.
The EU is now hoping for a broader agreement, with increased support also for Jordan, Lebanon and other parts of the region.
A final proposal from the European Commission is promised "soon".
To get a further sense of the situation, von der Leyen travels directly to Jordan for discussions with King Abdullah.
In addition to support for the refugees' housing, education and health care, she also flags for more financially oriented help.
"EU support should in future increasingly go to supporting better opportunities for refugees to earn their own living," says von der Leyen.
Concerned about human rights violations
At the same time, there are a number of issues to be dealt with, not least regarding the Turkish search for gas and oil outside the EU country Cyprus and how Turkey is behaving in terms of human rights, democracy and gender equality.
The importance of the latter is repeated time and time again by EU leaders in Ankara.
- We aim for an honest partnership: to strengthen what brings us closer together, but also to be very clear about what separates us.
I am deeply concerned about the fact that Turkey has withdrawn from the Istanbul Convention.
It is about protecting women and children from violence and is clearly the wrong signal to send right now, Ursula von der Leyen emphasizes.