Billions For Borders

How the EU pays Turkey to keep out refugees.

An investigation by Danwatch, Politiken, and The Black Sea with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network looks into the programmes paid for by the EU to Turkey to keep refugees out of Europe.

Contracts show that the EU bought 83 million Euro worth of military vehicles, surveillance equipment and patrol boats for the Turkish military to seal and police its borders with Europe and Syria, which experts argue might contravene international humanitarian law.

In-depth research into the six billion Euro EU-Turkey refugee ‘Facility’, signed in 2016 and financed by European tax payer money, reveals that it suffers from lack of transparency, slow implementation, harassment by Turkey of NGOs partners, and a rush to play politics.

Publications


The team

Initiators

Emilie Ekeberg Danwatch with John Hansen Politiken

Participants

Emilie Ekeberg (Danwatch), John Hansen (Politiken), Zeynep Şentek, Şebnem Arsu, Margherita Bettoni, Craig Shaw (The Black Sea), Francesca Sironi (L’Espresso), Maximilian Popp (Der Spiegel), Hanneke Chin-A-Fo (NRC)