The European Union is set to drastically reduce financial aid to Turkey. This emerges from a letter by Josep Borrell, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Financial support for refugee reception, known as the Turkey deal, will remain fully intact. Borrell cited the gas dispute in the Mediterranean and Ankara's military offensive in Syria as reasons.
Turkey has been a ‘future’ EU member for decades, but accession negotiations are completely stalled. All candidate countries receive financial support from Brussels to prepare their state structures for European rules and criteria. Since the rise to power of the Islamist AK Party and President Erdogan, Turkey has increasingly adopted a policy focused on the Middle East, and on a distinct Turkish nationality.
In recent years, Turkey and the EU have increasingly faced off against each other. For years, Europe's sympathy for the Kurds has caused tensions with Ankara, which has responded with significant military force against Kurdish groups, not only in southeastern Turkey but sometimes also in northern Iraq.
Recently, Turkey has become an ally of pro-Assad groups in the Syrian civil war, together with the Russians, while EU countries and NATO support opponents of the Syrian president, including Kurdish fighters. In the fighting in Libya, Turkey also threatens to pursue its own independent path.
Partly because of President Erdogan's anti-European stance, voices within the European Union have increasingly called for completely ending the stalled accession talks with Turkey. Some European politicians and EU countries found that too drastic, after which the talks were more or less put on hold. The payments, originally intended to total 3.5 billion euros between 2014 and 2020, became correspondingly controversial.
Opponents of a definitive break with Ankara argue that EU subsidies for ‘good’ projects benefiting the local Turkish population would also be canceled in that case. Therefore, Borrell is not halting all support but maintaining part of it.
The EU has decided to cut the so-called pre-accession support by three-quarters. Turkey will receive only 168 million euros this year from the IPA program for pre-accession to the EU. 150 million euros will still go to projects for strengthening democracy and the rule of law, and 18 million euros will continue to support a rural development program.
According to German and Kurdish sources, Borrell said that the EU had already reduced aid by a total of 1.2 billion euros since 2017. The commissioner for foreign policy justified the new sanctions by Turkey’s unauthorized gas drilling off the coast of EU member Cyprus and by Turkey’s military operation in northeastern Syria. However, Borrell emphasized that EU aid remains relevant due to its promotion of democracy and the rule of law.