STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT  movements to Europe are below the level of the record year of 2015 but remain high and could once again increase strongly at any time. The EU's agreement with Turkey, under which Turkey takes back migrants who have illegally entered Greece via its territory, is still in force but remains fragile. New measures in the seas between Libya and Italy have also led to reduced migration movements on the central Mediterranean route since mid-2017, but the prospects for the future are uncertain. In the light of this pressure from the eastern and southern Mediterranean region, Europe's relations with Turkey – a NATO member and a key partner in managing migration flows and curbing the terrorist threat – remain vital. In April 2017, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the referendum he had long sought on transforming Turkey's political system into a presidential one. He has thus succeeded in strengthening his control over Turkey's institutions since the coup attempt of summer 2016, and in paving the way for autocratic, socially conservative rule and for the accelerated de- cal solution in Palestine. Overall, the ongoing conflicts are creating a complex series of fractures right across the whole region, which is in a state of great turmoil and has not yet seen the end of the upheavals. Europe finally started feeling the effects of these crises in 2015 in the form of jihadist terrorism and the arrival of huge flows of refugees and migrants. The fierce battles for cities in Iraq and Syria are provoking acute humanitarian emergencies, but also highlight the long-term effects of the destruction of social and state structures in the countries affected. It is not clear at present whether there is any chance that the partially collapsed state order in the region can be restored. For the time being, the factors driving jihadist terrorism and migration movements to Europe thus continue to exert their effect. In 2017, the jihadist threat to Europe manifested itself in a series of attacks, in Istanbul, St. Petersburg, Paris, Manchester, London and Barcelona, and this threat will continue after ‘Islamic State’'s military defeats in Syria and Iraq. Overall migration RUSSIA Black Sea Caspian Sea GEORGIA Istanbul Ankara TURKEY Izmir ARMENIA KURDISH AREA Kayseri Tabriz Diyarbakir Antalya Afrin Adana Gaziantep Mosul Rojava CYPRUS SYRIA LEBANON Mediterranean Sea Kirkuk IRAQ Baghdad JORDAN SI TUATIO N R E P O RT 2018 | F I S IRAN Damascus ISRAEL 18 AZERBAIJAN 200 km