BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th September, 2019) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened earlier this week to open gates to Europe for refugees, continuously arriving from the middle East and North Africa, as Ankara was not receiving the agreed amount of support from partners in the European Union to adequately accommodate all the newcomers.
"We have no choice but to open the doors. If you want to support us, then do it. Are we supposed to bear this burden alone?" Erdogan was quoted as saying on Thursday by Turkish media.
In 2016, the bloc and Ankara concluded an agreement, under which the latter was supposed to curb the flow of illegal migrants who tried to transit Turkey in a bid to proceed further into the European continent. The package came with a whooping financial component of�6 billion Euros ($6.6 million) to be payed to Turkey.
"We have not received enough support from the world, so in order to receive it, we will have to do it [open borders]," Erdogan stressed.
EU PERPLEXED AS TO WHAT MORE TURKEY WANTS
"The European Union has already given nearly 2.5 billion euros out of the 6 billion EUR hastily promised by [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel to calm down the autocrat of Ankara, so more than one third of the funds coming from the taxes of all Europeans have already been spent on the 6 billion promised! The EU fulfills its part of the contract with Erdogan, and the gentleman complains? He says he does not get any help from the EU?" Dominique Bilde, a French lawmaker at the EU parliament for the Rassemblement National party, told Sputnik.
According to Bilde, the proper way for Europe to respond to Erdogan's ultimatum-like statement should be recalling the EU ambassadors from Turkey and obliging Ankara to observe its commitments under the deal.
"It is not much to ask: simply keep the Turkish borders closed to migrants trying to cross the Aegean sea and the border with Greece. The attitude of Turkey is totally unacceptable," she added.
Another French member of the European Parliament, Gilles Lebreton from the National Rally party, pointed to the excessive volume of assistance that Turkey has been receiving from the European Union beyond the migration deal.
"It is really too much! Not only is Europe pouring billions of euros into the Turkish economy and infrastructure, but we are to be insulted as well by the dictator in Ankara. If the European Commission does not react seriously, we will have to demand explanations when parliament resumes," Lebreton told Sputnik.
Turkey has long been accepting money from the European Union toward preparing for its accession to the bloc. Despite EU citizens overwhelmingly opposing the accession of Turkey, a Muslim-majority country of 80 million population, the European Commission and its administration in Brussels have been upholding the accession discourse and Ankara continued getting funds for that purpose.
"The declaration by Erdogan [on September 5] is pure blackmail and provocation. The man is used to making brutal declarations: Germans are 'Nazis,' the Dutch government is 'a bunch of fascists' because they refuse to let Erdogan's party organize giant election rallies in Germany and the Netherlands, where Erdogan himself comes to speak, telling his fellow countrymen in Germany who have double nationality that 'they must remain Turkish, whatever happens," Lebreton said.
"If Erdogan reopens the border with Turkey to let floods of illegal migrants through again, all financial help should be stopped to Turkey and diplomatic relations frozen," the lawmaker added.
SO HOW MUCH EXACTLY TURKEY GETS FROM EU
In the period from 2014-2010, Turkey is entitled to receive almost 4.5 billion euros under the so-called Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). These funds do not cover the migration deal and are supposed to go toward implementing reforms in a wide array of sectors with the ultimate aim of matching them with the European standards.
The European money that Ankara gets for implementing the migration deal come under the so called� EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey. It was established in 2015 and split into two equal tranches. The first 3 million euros were payed completely in 2016-2017, during when 80 projects have been established for "humanitarian assistance, education, migration management, health, municipal infrastructure, and socio-economic support."
An extra 400 million euros were added in the end of 2018 as a "Special Measure" grant for education purposes of Syrian children among refugees.
"To date, under the ��6 billion envelope, ��5.6 billion has been committed and ��3.5 billion contracted through 85 projects. More than ��125 million has been paid out since the beginning of 2019, bringing the total to ��2.35 billion (except for ongoing administrative expenditure, ECHO technical assistance, and monitoring, evaluation and audit expenditure that may be committed and contracted during the life of the Facility)," the European Commission said on its website.
According to the European Commission, Natasha Bertaud, "the rest will be paid soon."
With the resources invested, the European Union acknowledged last month that the migrant influx from Turkey to Greece has increased dramatically. The Greek authorities even summoned the Turkish ambassador, blaming Ankara for failure to observe its commitments under the EU-Turkey deal on migration, but Turkey itself is bending under heavy migrant inflow.
Turkey hosts approximately 3.7 million migrants and refugees, more than any other country in the world, and regularly detains undocumented migrants from the Middle East and North Africa who attempt further passage to the European Union by sneaking into neighboring Greece or Bulgaria.
In the meantime, the situation on the Greek islands, which are the closest entrance point for Europe-bound irregular migrants from Turkey has worsened to a dangerous scale. Migrants continue to arrive by sea and end up simply stranded in overcrowded reception facilities, as the Greek authorities do not rush to transfer them from the islands to the mainland.
According to the Aegean Boat Report, an independent Norwegian NGO, a total of 225 boats with 7,921 on board have managed to make it to the Greek islands in August, while 454 boats carrying 14,1999 people have been detained by the Turkish Coast guard and Police, the highest numbers month-on-month in both categories since 2015.
The so-called Mediterranean route is one of the most popular, but also the most dangerous routes of migration to the European continent from the Middle East and North Africa. Thousands of irregular migrants risk their lives while embarking upon a sea passage on unsafe, decrepit boats not designed for such long transfers and often operated by smugglers. According to the International Organization for Migration, at least 597 people died since January trying to reach the European Union by sea via the Mediterranean.
