Despite a significant decrease in Syrian refugees arriving in Europe from Turkey, EU countries have been reluctant to finance the refugee deal with Turkey from their national budgets, and suggested that the money could be paid from the EU budget instead, TheBlackSea.eu reported.
Secret leaked documents obtained by the media outlet showed that many EU countries were unhappy about being forced to pay another three billion euros to Ankara within the framework of the Turkey-EU migration deal.
The deal provided for two three-billion euro tranches to Turkey, the major part of which was set to come from the national budgets of EU members.
The discontent came as Brussels stated this month that it is ready to pay the second tranche to Ankara. Many member-states have suggested that the money could be taken from the EU's main budget or the pre-accession funds used for EU candidate countries.
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The countries also noted that they had not yet had any information on how the first three billion euros had been spent.
On March 18, 2016, Ankara and Brussels agreed upon a policy in which so-called irregular migrants would be sent back from Greece to Turkey in return for specially selected Syrian refugees housed in Turkish refugee camps to be resettled in Europe.
The deal has led to a drop in the number of new migrants arriving in Europe, but at the same time it has resulted in thousands of refugees being forced to resort to unsafe routes operated by smugglers.