Despite the fact that the European Union agreed to grant 3 billion euros to Turkey in November in order to stem the flood of asylum seekers into the 28-nation bloc, the EU has failed to keep its promise. The bloc's members have yet to reach an agreement on how to provide the promised fund to Turkey, which hosts more than 2.2 million refugees. Moreover, officials said Friday that Italy was blocking a deal on the fund's financing since Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said although Rome supports Turkey's efforts to manage 2 million Syrian refugees on its soil, he insisted the money should come from the EU budget. Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said after talks in Brussels that Italy had not lifted objections to how the 3 billion-euro fund should be paid, "but we hope that that is possible very, very soon."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged in November 2015 that the agreement, under which Europe will provide 3 billion euros and other inducements in return for Turkish help on stemming the flow of migrants, would not immediately halt the flow of asylum seekers from the Middle East and elsewhere. But Merkel said it would help "keep people in the region" and out of Europe. The EU considers the necessity of the fund as part of a wider deal between the EU and Ankara that targets coping with the worst migration crisis in Europe since World War II. Additionally, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday that the EU's reputation is being damaged worldwide for the failure of member countries to manage the refugee crisis. On the same day, Swiss authorities rejected criticism over the practice of seizing cash from refugees, saying it is based on a decades-old law and only applies in a fraction of cases.