According to a draft statement seen by Reuters that must still be agreed, the leaders may deploy more ships off Greece, agree to send 400 border guards to the borders between European Union countries and Western Balkans, and set up new checkpoints if the EU’s frontier states drop their policy of giving arrivals passage to other countries.
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“But also very important is to help Syria’s neighbouring countries where there are around 4 million refugees”, said UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch.
BRUSSELS, October 22 (Xinhua) – Politicians face an urgent task to overcome both public distrust and tensions among governments that threaten the future of Europe, European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans warned here Thursday at the opening of Friends of Europe’s annual State of Europe debate.
There has been a broad agreement among the participants that the flow of refugees along the Balkans route must be properly managed, he said.
“The only way to restore order to this situation is to slow down the uncontrolled flow of these people”.
The leaders representing Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia met in Brussels at the Commission’s Berlaymont Headquarters and agreed to improve cooperation and step up consultation between the countries along the route and decided on pragmatic operational measures that can be implemented as of today to tackle the refugee crisis in the region.
“If we do not deliver some immediate and concrete actions on the ground in the next few days and weeks I believe the European Union and Europe as a whole will start falling apart”.
Slovenia’s police said yesterday nearly 10,000 migrants entered Slovenia from Croatia in the same period, bringing the total number of arrivals in the past 12 days to almost 75,000.
The refugees continue to be “in a great hurry” to reach their intended destinations, Milenkovski said by phone on Tuesday. Countries also agreed to discourage migrants from moving to the border of another country, in an effort to limit secondary movement.
Many Balkan countries say they’re being overwhelmed after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in September there could be no limit on asylum for those who meet the conditions. While numerous migrants are traveling with infants, “some are reluctant to pause for humanitarian aid that they actually need”, she said.
Over the past month, more than 250,000 refugees have passed through the Balkans.
The worldwide Organization for Migration says more than 680,000 migrants and refugees have crossed to Europe by sea so far this year, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
“All three countries… are ready if Germany and Austria and other countries close their borders (…), we will be ready to also close our borders at that very same moment”, Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov said after talks between the three Balkan leaders in Sofia.
The Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, said having a summit on the refugee crisis would be of little use if Turkey were not invited.
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While EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed: “Waving them through has to be stopped and that is what is going to happen”.
