EU fumes at Turkish 'blackmail', mulls more money for Ankara

European Union ambassadors voiced outrage at a meeting this week over what they see as an attempt by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to “blackmail” the bloc by allowing migrants to mass at Greece’s border, Reuters reported citing diplomatic sources. 

Some envoys conceded, however, that Erdogan has the EU in a bind because its member states cannot agree how to deal with refugees and – to avoid a replay of the 2015/16 migration crisis – believe the bloc will have to cough up more money for Turkey to go on keeping a lid on arrivals in Europe.

“The EU is the target of a blackmail,” one diplomat told Monday’s closed-door meeting in Brussels, details of which were relayed to Reuters by multiple diplomatic sources.

The EU has struggled to respond as thousands of migrants have arrived at Greece’s border from Turkey in recent days. Its ties with Ankara are already strained over security and human rights, as well as Turkish hydrocarbon drilling off Cyprus.

In 2015/16 the chaotic arrival of more than a million people from the Middle East stretched the bloc’s security and welfare systems and fuelled political support for far-right groups.

The EU sealed a deal with Turkey in March 2016 under which Ankara stopped people on its soil from heading to Europe. In exchange, the bloc offered 6 billion euros in aid for the more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees Turkey is hosting.

Read: EU says Turkey in tough situation with migrants but must not let them into Europe

But Erdogan has long complained that the money is slow to come and channeled through aid groups, not Turkey’s budget. After Russian-backed Syrian government forces killed Turkish soldiers in an air strike in Syria last week, Ankara signalled it would walk away from its pact with the EU altogether.

“You sleep with the devil, you wake up in hell – there is where we are now,” one ambassador said during the meeting.

Compounding the EU’s dilemma are internal divisions over how to distribute the burden of caring for refugees and migrants arriving in the 27-nation bloc.

One senior EU diplomat said the EU had squandered the time since the 2016 deal, brushing the problem under the carpet by paying for refugees and migrants to be kept in Turkey.

Representatives of the Netherlands, Italy, France and Germany were among those who proposed giving more funds to help refugees in Turkey in the hope of appeasing Erdogan.

At the same time, “as much as it is logical for the EU to continue supporting Syrian refugees in Turkey, it is important not to create the impression of giving in to blackmail”, one of the diplomats said, according to the sources.

During a visit on Tuesday to a Turkish-Greek border crossing that thousands of migrants have been trying to breach, EU officials promised more cash to Greece to deal with the crisis.

Read: EU foreign ministers to hold emergency meeting on Syria’s Idlib