Leiden University Student Repository

Risseeuw, Liza (2025)

The Paradox of Protection: The role of the EU-Türkiye deal in shaping Türkiye’s Temporary Protection Status for Syrian refugees (2016-2024)

Bachelor thesis | Midden-Oostenstudies (BA)

This thesis reveals the effects of the 2016 EU-Türkiye deal on the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) of Syrian refugees in Türkiye between 2016 and 2024, up to the fall of the Assad regime. While TPS was initially introduced as an emergency response to a humanitarian crisis, this thesis demonstrates how the EU-deal accelerated the implementation of the return logic embedded in TPS from the outset. Using process tracing and discourse analysis of policy documents, official statements, media and NGO reports, this research analyses how the deal resulted in stricter registration procedures, limited mobility, and increasing deportations for Syrian refugees in Türkiye. Instead promoting protection and integration, the deal reinforced the legal precarity of Syrians and consolidated their position as ‘guests’ under TPS rather than recognised refugees.

securitisation, migration diplomacy, EU-Türkiye deal, Syrian refugees, border regime, Temporary Protection Status, legal limbo

Author

Risseeuw, Liza

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Modern Middle East

Supervisors

M. Calculli

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en