BRUSSELS, Belgium: This week, the European Union (EU) said it will provide aid to Lebanon worth 1 billion euros (around US$1.06 billion) to help control the flow of asylum seekers and migrants crossing across the Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus and Italy.

The deal comes amid increasing hostility toward Syrian refugees in Lebanon and a surge in their irregular migration to Cyprus.

While visiting Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in Beirut, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the aid distribution will start this year and continue until 2027.

Figures from the Cypriot government showed that most of the aid, some 736 million euros, will be allocated to supporting Syrian refugees “and other vulnerable groups” in Lebanon, while 200 million euros will go to Lebanese security services to boost their border and migration control efforts.

An unspecified amount will be given to Lebanese fishermen to discourage them from selling their boats to smugglers.

The EU will also work on a “more structured approach to voluntary return” of Syrian refugees “in close cooperation with” the UN refugee agency and will continue to maintain “legal pathways” for resettlement of refugees in Europe, Von der Leyen said.

Lauding the aid deal, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said, “Lebanon’s security is security for European countries and vice versa,” and an escalation of the crisis “will not be limited to Lebanon but will extend to Europe.”

Suffering from a severe financial crisis since 2019, Lebanon hosts nearly 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands more who are unregistered.

However, some Lebanese officials are not convinced the European aid would solve the issue.

In a statement to The Associated Press earlier this week, Lebanese Forces party head Samir Geagea said European authorities are mainly concerned “that the refugees do not go to Europe.”

“For us the problem is that we cannot have our country drowning in illegal Syrian refugees,” Geagea said, stressing that Syrians should be sent back to either government or opposition-held areas of their country.