EU to Cut Financial Aid to Turkey

Click to read the article in Turkish

European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn spoke at the general assembly session titled “Aid instrument for Turkey before access” held by the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

According to Kayhan Karaca from Deutsche Welle Türkçe, Hahn said that pre-membership aids spared for 2018 will be cut by 40 percent.

The European Union (EU) had allocated 4 billion and 453 million euros to Turkey from 2014 to 2020 ad part of the pre-membership aids.

In the meeting, it was decided that 253 million euros will be cut from the budget of 2018.

“Setback” in areas of democracy, rule of law and human rights in Turkey were cited as the reason for the cut.

With this decision, the EU for the first time will have cut the financial aids allocated to a candidate country in accession talks. (PT/TK)