According to the German media DW, EU-Commissioner for European Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said that the so called IPA, pre-accession assistance fund will be cut by 40 percent in the portion reserved for 2018.

Speaking at the session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday, Hahn said: “democracy and human rights in Turkey have deteriorated, distancing the country from Europe”.

Emphasizing that IPA funds should be reduced and directed to "priority" areas, Hahn indicated as recipient non-governmental organizations operating in the fields of democracy, human rights and the state of law.

The European Union has allocated some 4 billion 453 million euro financial assistance, to use as pre-accession aid in the negotiations with Turkey. This amount covers the period from 2014 to 2020. According to the DW, the amount will be cut by about 253 million euros with the 2018 budget.

Democracy is a condition for financial assistance

As a reason for the cut, deterioration in democracy conditions, the rule of law and human rights in Turkey have been given.

If there are no positive developments in these areas by the end of 2018, the planned financial aid for 2019 and 2020 will be cut by 253 million euros. Should this happen Turkey will suffer a total cut in the 2014-2020 budget of about 750 million euros.

The European Commission wants the EU Delegation to Turkey to directly manage and distribute part of the IPA assistance, this would be the section devoted to civil society dialogue.

According to the new understanding, some of the financial assistance foreseen for infrastructure works will be directed to areas that are considered "priority" by the EU, such as human rights, the rule of law and democratization.

It is the first time that the European Union cuts financial assistance allocated to a candidate country during membership negotiations.

As it happened n 2016 when all the political groups supported the decision to suspend temporarily membership negotiations with Turkey, they also supported the European Parliament on the financial assistance cuts.

Turkey is buying armored vehicles with EU money

It is to be noted that a large number of members of the EU at the plenary session indicated their favour in cutting assistance. DW wrote that some MEPs said: “Turkey has purchased armored vehicles with assistance money, and with these same armored vehicles have forced asylum seekers coming from Syria back to Syria”.

European Parliament rapporteur on Turkey, Kati Piri has called on the European Commission to launch an investigation on allegations that armored vehicles have been purchased with IPA money.

Some MEPs also said that with these armored vehicles "a large number of Syrian refugees were killed”. The statement prompted an answer by Johannes Hahn who said that indeed Turkey had bought armored vehicles with IPA money for “border security”, but added that these armored vehicles carried no weapons, which is why, he said there is no evidence that asylum seekers have been killed by these vehicles.