The European Union on Tuesday denied claims by Germany that countries refusing binding quotas for the relocation of refugees could face aid cuts.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker “has suggested that we should look at whether these countries should get less structural funds, which I agree with” to turn the screw on the hold-out states.
Germany’s Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel made a similar suggestion about using EU aid funds to exert pressure, adding that Europe had “disgraced itself” after failing to agree on a quota plan at an emergency meeting Monday.
But European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud told AFP: “The president has never said this.”
Current agreements with EU states “do not provide a legal basis to reduce European structural and investment funds allocations if a member state refuses binding (refugee) relocation mechanisms,” Bertaud added.
“To introduce such conditionality would require revising the (EU budget) and is not something we are currently exploring.”
Hopes of a unanimous deal on distributing refugees across the bloc collapsed in the face of opposition from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania at the crisis meeting of interior ministers in Brussels on Monday.
Germany, which is expecting to receive a million asylum-seekers this year, has been pushing for other European countries to take their fair share of refugees.
