EU rocked as Erdogan seeks to parlay migrants into finanacial, geopolitical advantage

The European Union is scrambling for a new agreement with Turkey to prevent migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond flooding into the EU. But there is little sign so far that Ankara is ready to accept the terms Brussels is offering.

Since Turkey announced on Feb. 28 that it would no longer abide by a 2016 deal to keep refugees on its territory, accusing the EU of falling short on commitments of financial support, some 35,000 migrants have massed on the border with Greece where they have been thrust back by Greek forces.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday in Zagreb, where its foreign ministers met to weigh the crisis, that member states were willing to offer more money to Turkey beyond the 6 billion euros ($6.79 billion) pledged in 2016.

But Turkey, which hosts almost 4 million refugees and migrants, first had to stop using migrants as a bargaining chip. "Turkey has a big burden…and we have to understand that," Borrell said. But at the same time, we cannot accept that migrants are being used as a source of pressure."

Even if the EU does decide to offer more money, it's not clear it will be sufficient to assuage Turkey or be the kind of support that Ankara, which is simultaneously involved in conflicts in Syria and Libya, really wants.

So far, the EU has retained oversight over the use of the funds it disburses. But an EU diplomat involved in discussions in Zagreb said the Turks wanted funds paid directly to them, something EU member states are very unlikely to agree to.

Instead, officials have raised the possibility of topping up an existing fund to support refugees' education with around 500 million euros, which would keep the programme running until the end of 2021. It remains unclear whether that...