One of the EU’s most senior leaders has warned would-be economic migrants not to undertake a life-threatening journey to Europe.
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Others at the center in Sid said that they were turned back from the Croatian border because some data in the migrant documents issued on the Macedonian border with Greece did not match the data in their passports, such as misspelled or incomplete names or wrong birth dates.
Greece, the main gateway for migrants into Europe, had asked the European Union for help to provide for tens of thousands of migrants in its territory.
The EU Commission also plans to present initial plans to reform the Dublin regulation that states that asylum requests be handled where asylum is first claimed in mid-March.
“Cooperation with Turkey and the summit on Monday are so crucial”, he said.
Tusk is expected to hold talks with Greek officials in Athens Thursday, followed on Friday by a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul.
European Union member states must still approve the funding.
Seven Schengen countries including Germany have emergency border controls in place now and the Commission said it wanted them all lifted no later than December with an eye on fully restoring the partly-suspended area by the end of the year.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (R) meets with European Council President Donald Tusk at the Maximos Mansion in Athens, Greece, March 3, 2016.
Tusk’s visit to Greece is part of an intensive three-day trip around the western Balkans that included a visit to the Dobova refugee camp in Slovenia on Wednesday. “Greece or any other European country will no longer be a transit country”, Tusk said after his meeting with Tsipras according to the Financial Times.
With police forced to use tear gas to quell people trying to storm the border, Macedonian foreign minister Nikola Poposki has defended the tighter controls his country has imposed.
While people seeking a better life are among the migrants building up in Greece, the majority of arrivals are refugees from war and persecution.
Greece says looking after the migrants will require around 8,200 officials – police, firemen, medical staff, field workers and translators. So far this year, more than 135,000 arrived in Europe – mostly through Greece – after more than a million people entered the bloc in 2015.
European leaders are divided ahead of two summits this month on the migration crisis, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying that debt-hit Greece must not be allowed to plunge into “chaos”.
The border restrictions have left Greece with a huge bottleneck of people as Macedonia lets only a trickle through.
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An EU official said Brussels and European governments were counting on Turkey substantially reducing the numbers of people reaching Greek islands within days and that those who did take to boats could now be deported and accepted back by Turkey under an existing return agreement between Athens and Ankara.
