Greece on Thursday said it is recalling its ambassador to Austria amid disagreements over the handling of Europe’s migrant crisis.
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Meanwhile the European Commission questioned Hungary’s decision to hold a referendum on mandatory quotas for refugees, which the bloc’s leaders agreed on previous year to deal with the migrant crisis. He told a news conference Friday there would be “no unfairness to anybody” if all decisions are implemented together.
In a positive development, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on Thursday (Feb 25) managed to overcome sharp differences between long-time rivals Greece and Turkey to finalise an unprecedented naval mission to tackle migrant smugglers in the Aegean.
The move comes a week after Austria announced it would let no more than 3,200 new entries into the country per day and take only 80 applications for asylum daily.
Nebojsa Stefanovic said Friday that an official note from Croatia arrived the day before, and that Croatia had previously been informed of a change by Slovenia.
A further row broke out between Paris and Brussels after Belgium chose to impose checks at its border with France to stop people coming from the “Jungle” migrant camp in Calais.
Authorities wanted a ruling allowing them to raze the camp, where thousands of migrants from the world’s trouble spots have gathered to try to sneak across the English Channel to Britain via ferry or a Eurotunnel rail service.
Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said about 20,000 migrants are stuck in the country, and pledged to set up new camps near the Macedonian border within the next 10 days that could host them all in “decent” conditions.
“But… (with) the Macedonian borders closed, we are really disappointed”.
Speaking on a talk show late Thursday Rama contradicted a statement made earlier by the integration minister in which she said Albania would not build a wall to prevent refugees and other migrants from entering.
Refugees and migrants rest after their arrival from the eastern Greek islands to the Athens’ port of Piraeus, Friday, Feb. 26, 2016. Normally, they would then take buses straight to Idomeni.
Doing so threatens Europe’s Schengen passport-free zone which most belong to, and also causes havoc as a border closure in one country strands thousands of refugees on the other side in a knock-on effect, as in the case of Austria and Greece.
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About 2,000 people – more than half from Syria and Iraq – are arriving daily from Turkey using dinghies and small boats, but the number of people crossing into neighboring Macedonia has dropped dramatically in the past week, and was down to just 150 on Thursday, according to Greek police figures.
