European Union leaders have agreed to provide another 100,000 spaces in refugee welcome centres along the route from Greece towards Germany.
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“From the Commission’s point of view, we are willing to find additional means of supporting those countries that are most exposed to the refugee crisis and Greece is among them”, Dombrovskis told a news conference in the Greek capital.
It was sometimes hard to remember that all the leaders who turned up here today professed to want the same thing: an end to the chaos that increasingly marks the migration route through the Western Balkans.
The agreement comes in the wake of differences among member nations on how to tackle the continent’s greatest refugee crisis since World War II.
Speaking after the meeting the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “Europe must show it is a continent of values, a continent of solidarity…”
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels on Sunday pledged to increase capacity at reception centres along the Western Balkans route and send extra police forces to Slovenia within a week as part of a 17-point action plan agreed overnight in Brussels.
“This is a step in the right direction and now it is crucial to respect the commitments”, said Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar, whose tiny Alpine nation has been overwhelmed by the flow since Hungary put up a fence on the border with Serbia and Croatia, diverting the flow to Slovenia.
Almost 250,000 people have passed through the Balkans since mid-September, the Associated Press reported.
The worldwide Organization for Migration says more than 680,000 migrants and refugees have crossed to Europe by sea so far this year, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
A child held by a man watches as migrants wait in rain to cross a border line between Serbia and Croatia, near the village of Babska, Croatia, Monday, October 19, 2015.
It’s a sentiment echoed by numerous leaders here today – that without action from Turkey in stemming the number of people crossing its border into Greece, anything else is just tinkering around the edges.
Based on the deal, no country will let asylum seekers through to an adjoining state without first obtaining its neighbor’s consent. He said: ‘Why doesn’t Greece control its maritime half with Turkey?’.
“Deploying in Slovenia 400 police officers and essential equipment within a week, through bilateral support”.
Many countries in eastern Europe have threatened to close their borders if yesterday’s conference, summoned by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, does not come up with a plan to manage the situation.
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The numbers arriving in Slovenia were proportionate to half a million arriving in Germany in one day, he said.
