The Austrian police and army tried to control the situation, urging people to remain calm.
Advertisement
It is likely to run into domestic and global criticism for the signal it sends to other nations struggling to cope with tens of thousands of desperate people moving though their nations.
Tsipras accused the European Union of inability to effectively address the humanitarian crisis, and said Western countries that took part in military interventions in the Middle East bear responsibility for the mass migrant flows. The plan calls for significantly strengthening Frontex support between Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as setting up border control operations at Macedonia’s and Albania’s land borders with Greece.
However, European Union members have previously been slow to deliver on pledges of assistance.
However, Germany is taking in fewer and fewer refugees every day – as the paper pointed out “only 50 people per hour – which is why, according to the Austrian ministry, “refugees organize themselves in order to cross the border”.
EU officials said they were not told in advance of Austria’s plan and, in a sign of the sensitivity of the development, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker held hastily arranged talks with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.
Mohammed, a Syrian, said he’s been seeing the same over the past 20 days. “We need them to not arrive here”. Babar Baloch, spokesman in Hungary for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said “this should have been done months ago”, while Natasa Pirc Musar, the Slovenian Red Cross president, compared the plan to “trying to use a small fire extinguisher to kill a giant fire”.
Slovenian government has announced a few 6,400 migrants arrived in its territory by Thursday afternoon, with two more trains of refugees on the way from Croatia, while a few 8,200 were located at the various migrants centres across the country at 5 pm.
The service said the search for the missing migrants resumed Friday.
Tempers flared between Berlin and Vienna this week when Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere on Wednesday hit out at Austria for sending asylum seekers to its 800-kilometre-long (500-mile-long) border without any warning.
“People are marching toward Germany because they feel they are invited there”, she said, alluding to perceptions that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has suggested all who have a right to asylum are welcome. “There is only Slovenian police”, said Rashed, also from Syria.
Advertisement
More than 700,000 people have landed on Europe’s southern shores so far this year, the majority from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and divisions have opened up between European Union states on how to deal with the crisis.
