Greece asked for European help on Thursday to secure its borders and care for crowds of migrants, defusing threats from EU allies to bar it from the passport-free Schengen zone if it failed to get a grip.
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Greece has been overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of Syrians and other refugees who have reached the country’s shores this year.
In effect, approval by the European Commission would enable emergency temporary border checks introduced this summer to curb migrant flows between countries such as Austria and Germany to be made long-term and more stringent. It will also help authorities screen and process refugees as they arrive in Europe. Greece is used as one of the transit states en route to more wealthy European Union countries.
A migrant died of electrocution Thursday after clashes broke out between refugees and migrants trapped on the Greek-Macedonian border, Greek police said.
Handicapped by the economic crisis that almost saw it drop out of the euro currency zone, Greece has struggled to cope this year with almost 600,000 people making the short but perilous crossing from Turkey to Greek islands scattered along its coast.
Many migrants, however, notably South Asians who would be unlikely to qualify for asylum in the European Union, try to avoid registration or claiming asylum in Greece and move quickly north into Macedonia, heading for prosperous northwest Europe.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, listens to his Greek counterpart Nikos Kotzias after a news conference in Athens, Friday, Dec. 4, 2015.
The Greek government says it is trying to persuade the those stuck at the border in squalid camps and in near-freezing temperatures, to come to Athens and apply for asylum in Greece, saying there was accommodation available for them.
Two of the attackers slipped into Europe through Greece posing as refugees from Syria s civil war, according to French prosecutors. The assistance thus far requested from Greece amounts to the needs of a small city: 20 buses, 26 ambulances, 17 mini vans, water pumps, generators, over 800 heated containers for families, hygienic equipment, 1,000 beds, 1,500 tents, heaters, 100,000 sleeping bags, raincoats, woolen blankets, etc.
On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported exclusively that Greece would on Friday be given until mid-December to gain control of its borders or face suspension from Schengen.
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About accusations that Greece resembled an “unfenced vineyard”, the deputy minister said that land borders were being managed but “since the refugees enter through the sea borders on a boat, the only option for us is to rescue them”. “Since May Greece has persistently been asking for technical, technological and staffing help, and what it has received from Europe is far less than what was asked for”, Xydakis told The Related Press in an interview. I have for months been demanding that Greece must recognise this responsibility and be ready to accept European help. She called the Greek concession “an important step in the right direction”.
