Brussels, 15/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - Italy is the only member state to express reservation as to how to bring together the €3 billion intended to finance the migration action plan between the EU and Turkey.
At the end of the Ecofin Council on Friday 15 January, Italy's finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan said that “Italia is not blocking anything. It is fully supportive of the initiative to provide Turkey with sufficient resources to tackle the refugee crisis”. In the Italians' view, “there is still space in the budget as its stands, in terms of flexibility in the use of resources and mobilisation of financial instruments, so that the €3 billion is fully covered by the EU budget without necessarily requesting member states to contribute”, he continued. He believed that this needs to be “clarified” through identifying criteria as to how its resources will be used.
Since the end of November 2015, the EU member states have been working on the financing of the commitment made by the European leaders to pay Turkey €3 billion over two years so that it can stem the flow of migrants to the European Union (see EUROPE 11449 and 11441). After the latest discussions between the member states, the contribution from the EU budget is expected to be for €1 billion.
It is because the system of relocating refugees in the EU is not working that many countries are insisting on the envelope of €3 billion being used urgently, said Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble. Advocating the assessment of “all possibilities” for financing the EU-Turkey action plan through the European budget, he thought that “additional money from the member states” would be needed. “A solution needs to be found quickly to preserve Schengen. On this point there is concurrence between the finance ministers”, he said. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion and Pascal Hansens)