IKV PRESS RELEASE

4 FEBRUARY 2016
 

IKV CHAIRMAN AYHAN ZEYTİNOĞLU: WE WELCOME THE EU’S APPROVAL OF THE 3 BILLION EURO FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
“AN IMPORTANT STEP HAS BEEN ACHIEVED TOWARDS EFFECTIVE COOPERATION IN THE REFUGEE ISSUE”

As announced by the European Commission on 3 February 2016, the agreement on a financial assistance amounting to 3 billion euros to Turkey regarding the refugee action plan has been accepted. The amount which was to be deducted from the EU budget was at first settled to 500 million euros but was later raised to 1 billion euros. The contribution of Member States increased to a total of 2 billion euros as indicated in the table below. Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain are the largest contributing countries.

Furthermore, whilst one should welcome the fact that an agreement has been reached on this subject with the EU, we should not forget that Turkey is hosting currently on its own more than 2.5 million refugees and spent more than 7 billion euros in that purpose.

This constitutes a first step in enhancing the cooperation for the refugee crisis in terms of facilitating the access of Syrian refugees to education, health and social services through this 3 billion euros fund. Since this a common concern of humanity, stronger and more effective cooperation should be pursued in the future in this area.

Ayhan ZEYTİNOĞLU
IKV Chairman

    Table: Contributions of Member States Regarding the 3 Billion Euros Fund (in million euros)