Despite a significant drop in Syrian refugees entering Europe from Turkey, member states did not want to finance the mega-deal from their national coffers, and instead asked to raid pre-accession funds or divert cash from the EU budget, according to our Billions for Borders investigation.

The EU leaders and Turkey's President Erdoğan were arguing about money.

“We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and put the refugees on buses,” Erdoğan told European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at the G20 summit in Antalya in November 2015.

When minutes of this meeting later leaked to Greek media, they painted a embarrassing picture of a terrified Europe enthralled to a combative Turkey - a country then housing 2.5 million Syrian refugees.

This conflict in Antalya stemmed from a confusion over the amount the Europe would pay Ankara under new proposal being discussed to keep these refugees from entering the EU. Juncker thought three billion Euro had been agreed upon. Erdoğan was not satisfied.

If the Juncker and Tusk were prepared to give only three billion Euro, the Turkish President said, “there is no need to discuss further”.

It had to be six billion.

Arising from these tense negotiations was the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey, known as FRiT, which was finalised on 18 March 2016.

Juncker and Tusk bowed down. The ‘agreement’ approved two tranches of funding at three billion Euro each, as financial aid to Syrians. The first was to be spent by the end of March 2018, when a second three billion Euro would be available for a further two years.

Pleased with the situation in Turkey, the EU announced this month that it is ready to release the further three billion Euro of its taxpayers' money, the majority of which was due to come from EU member states' individual budgets.

But not everyone in the 28 member-bloc is happy with the agreement, according to leaked documents obtained by The Black Sea and shared with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network.

These meeting minutes show that national delegates expressed discontent about paying further for the facility from their own pockets. They suggested that funds should be sourced from the pre-accession money used for EU candidate countries or the EU’s main budget.

The documents highlight the hasty way in which the EU approved the second tranche, suggesting it was undertaken to appease Turkey prior to the EU leaders’ meeting with Erdoğan in Varna on 26 March 2018. The move caused “deep dissatisfaction” from all the member states.

According to the deal struck between Turkey and Europe, the initial three billion consisted of one billion Euro from the EU’s own budget and two billion Euro from member states.

The biggest contributor was Germany, which paid in almost half a billion Euro. Next was the United Kingdom, and then France and Italy. By December 2016, all member states had sent their portion.