“It would effectively break the business model of the smugglers”, he said.
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Yet sharply different political concerns have colored the two leaders’ response to the problem of getting Turkey to cooperate with Europe’s plans for slowing migrants from the Middle East and Africa.
A new Schengen evaluation will be carried out by European Union experts, who will inspect Greece’s land and sea borders, from April 11-17.
Journalist Ann Cahill told Breakfast the country’s migrants have been arriving to – like Greece – are just not able to cope with the numbers landing: “That is not happening because they just don’t want that number of people so they have just been waving them on”.
The late winter freeze brought similar misery to Greece’s border with Macedonia. This year alone, some 124,000 people have taken the Mediterranean route to Greece.
Peter Sutherland said the “inevitable consequence” of closed borders throughout the Balkans “is that Greece increasingly becomes a camp for refugees and migrants”.
Macedonia briefly opened the border, letting another 320 through before resealing it, Greek police said. One man fainted after he was told to go back.
The 26-country Schengen area – allowing passport-free travel across member states – is under threat as eight countries have reintroduced border controls to stem the flow of migrants through the bloc.
He also had a direct message for them. “Do not risk your lives and your money”, Mr. Tusk said after meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens. It is all for nothing.
Greece is mired in a full-blown diplomatic dispute with some European Union countries over their border slowdowns and closures. “But unfortunately, the breaches of ceasefire, especially by Russian forces and Syrian regime renders the ceasefire even more vulnerable”, Davutoglu said at a joint news conference with Tusk in Ankara.
Tusk’s attack on refugees as “irregular” or “illegal economic migrants” is a slander against hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children fleeing bloody conflicts stoked by the U.S. and European powers.
The EU Council President has urged economic migrants everywhere to think twice and not “risk for nothing” taking a unsafe trip to Europe. “Do not believe the smugglers”.
Tusk welcomed Turkish actions which he said included the “stepped up efforts of the Turkish coast guard, intensified police controls to combat human trafficking and the tightening of visa requirements”. As the prosperous but divided continent flails in search of a workable solution, individual countries led by Austria have imposed immigration caps that have caused a domino effect down the Balkan immigration corridor, which has been traversed by a million people over the past year. Thousands of people wait through the night, shivering in the cold at the Greek-Macedonian border, in the country’s main port of Piraeus, in squares dotted around Athens, or on dozens of buses parked up and down Greece’s main north-south highway.
His suggestion comes despite internal European Commission documents warning about corruption and security risks when providing humanitarian assistance in cash.
“That has nothing to do with protection of external borders”.
Tusk will stay on for a meeting with Turkish President Recep Teyyip Erdogan and is scheduled to meet with Davutoglu again next Monday at an emergency EU-Turkey summit dedicated to the issue of refugees. “The reality is that 48 percent of the people arriving in Greece are Syrians, majority are coming from Aleppo”, said Vincent Cochetel, from UNHCR Europe.
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“We will not allow Greece or any other country to be turned into a warehouse of souls”, he added. “Should we see no success by then we will not hesitate to create requirements so that border controls in Europe can be extended”.
