Macedonian officials are only allowing refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to pass the border into the country.
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One man died of electrocution while two others were injured on the Greece-Macedonia border as migrants and refugees clashed there on Thursday.
Tensions escalated after a Moroccan man was electrocuted and burned to death when he climbed on top of a train.
The International Organization for Migration estimated in late November that almost 860,000 migrants had landed in Europe so far this year, with over 3,500 dying while crossing the Mediterranean in search of safety.
Greece is at the forefront of Europe’s immigration crisis, with more than 700,000 people having crossed over so far this year from nearby Turkey, in frail boats provided by smuggling gangs charging high fees.
A 30-year-old Pakistani man, known only as Eli, who has been living in Greece for six years and wishes to go on to Germany said: “Why aren’t they allowing us to cross?” Macedonian police also fired tear gas at protesting migrants who were pelting them with stones.
The Luxembourg minister who will chair Friday’s meeting in Brussels has told Reuters that he opposed suggestions from some other European Union member states that Greece be suspended from the bloc’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel for failing to secure its section of the EU’s external border.
Train connections between Greece and Macedonia have been blocked for days by Iranian migrants who are occupying the railway tracks in protest at being stranded.
The group “will talk to the other European Union members and try to win them over to the idea of maintaining Schengen without letting it crumble into mini-Schengens, while ensuring the functioning of the outer border”, Czech prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka said.
Refugees disembark from a vessel to the shore shortly after arriving from the Turkish coast to the n …
The European Commission, which under President Jean-Claude Juncker has been pressing Tsipras to accept more EU help, said Athens had formally activated two other assistance programmes. That has since been sealed but medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which is involved in saving people at sea in the Aegean, called on the European Union on Thursday to open new, safer routes to Europe.
UNHCR reiterates its concerns over the consequences of border restrictions now implemented by several countries in the Balkans. But Greece’s neighbors could reintroduce border controls for Greek people if the country were deemed to be “seriously neglecting its obligations”.
“The situation in Idomeni must stop”, he said.
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“Greece is the start of the corridor”.
