European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (right) welcomes Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan mocked European Union overtures for help with its migration crisis during a long-awaited visit to Brussels yesterday.

Erdogan, preparing for a November 1 parliamentary election, boasted of Turkey’s record in taking two million refugees from neighbouring Syria and Iraq, and contrasted it with the numbers passing through the bloc.

“While we host 2.2 million refugees, Europe as a whole houses less than 250,000 refugees in total,” Erdogan said at a televised meeting with Belgian business leaders.

He had told supporters in France the day before: “What do they say to us? ... ‘Oh my, don’t open your doors, don’t let them reach us,” according to Hurriyet newspaper.

The typically bullish remarks will concern European Union officials who hope to convince Mr Erdogan to shelter more Syrian refugees in return for aid and also reflect Turkish anger at what Ankara sees as Europe’s failure to help in the civil war, either by intervening or taking more refugees. Despite Mr Erdogan’s tone, however, top European officials are likely to refrain from any criticism of the man they view with growing suspicion, looking to the popular politician to help solve its worst migration crisis since the break-up of former Yugoslavia.

While we host 2.2 million refugees, Europe houses less than 250,000 refugees in total

Mr Erdogan’s trip, officially a state visit to Belgium, has been repeatedly postponed amid tension over Turkey’s stalled bid to join the EU, what the bloc sees as Mr Erdogan’s growing authoritarianism and fears for press freedoms in Turkey.

In meetings set to determine whether Europe can win Mr Erdogan’s backing for a plan to stem the migrant flow from Turkey, the Turkish President is holding talks with the presidents of the EU’s three main institutions, the parliament, the executive and the council of EU member governments.

There, diplomats say, the focus will be on how to better manage the flows of migrants fleeing fighting and the brutality of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. That will also be at the centre of a major meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday of EU, Western Balkan and East Mediterranean countries.

The EU, which pledged €1 billion ($1.1 billion) for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and others last month, says it wants to help Turkey absorb and integrate more migrants on its own soil and cooperate with Greece in preventing migrant flows.

Mr Erdogan said Turkey had spent $7.5 billion on sheltering refugees, criticising the $417 million it had received in foreign aid as “not sustainable”.

A German newspaper on Sunday said that the European Commission had already agreed a plan with Ankara to stem the flow of refugees to Europe by patrolling Turkey’s frontier with Greece and setting up new camps.

But a senior EU official involved in negotiations with Turkey said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung report, which detailed six new camps for two million, was “not in line with what we have been discussing”.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu even rejected the EU funding last week, saying that Turkey was not prepared to be a “concentration camp” for refugees.

More likely is an EU offer to speed up visa-free travel for Turks to Europe and financial aid in return for asylum reception centres and potentially allowing Syrians to work in Turkey.