Greece is not the only country under fire over its handling of the migrant crisis, with Denmark facing criticism Wednesday after its lawmakers passed a bill allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees.
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Austria and Sweden have recently threatened Athens with potential expulsion from Europe’s passport-free travel zone unless it does more to stem the refugee influx into the continent.
The member states “gave a clear signal” that if they can’t stop the migrants reaching Greece, they would consider helping Greece’s neighbor Macedonia to better seal its border to slow the movement of migrants into other European countries, said Dutch State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff.
EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis quotes the report as saying Greece “seriously neglected its obligations under the Schengen agreement”.
Commission inspectors found “there is no effective identification and registration of irregular migrants”.
If the idea is approved, it will seal off Greece and exclude it from the lifting of the Schengen agreement, which has infuriated the Greek migration minister.
He said there were “serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border controls that must be overcome and dealt with by the Greek authorities”.
“We are not linking the Greek (bailout) programme with Schengen-related issues”, said Dombrovskis, who took a leading role in the protracted bailout talks past year.
The step of imposing border controls, under the as yet unused Article 26 of the Schengen code, can be taken for up to six months and can be renewed up to three times for a total of two years. We will be completely ready with regard to these commitments in a month.
However, the arrival of more than a million people in the past year, many of them refugees, with all the challenges, political and practical, that brings, is straining Europe.
The onset of winter does not appear to have deterred the migrants, with boats still arriving on the Greek islands from Turkey daily.
The introduction of the temporary border checks has raised fears that the passport-free Schengen zone, a symbol of European unity, freedom and prosperity, could collapse.
In addition, he says Frontex supports the protection of the border between Greece and Macedonia through assistance provided by Greece.
Unless the numbers drop before Merkel meets fellow European Union leaders at a summit in mid-February, some form of border closing by the bloc’s leading power would be increasingly likely – not least as Germans vote in key regional elections in March.
Additional security is needed on the Greek-Macedonian border, a European Commission spokeswoman said following news that a Pakistani man was stabbed to death there in an affray between migrants.
The three countries have taken in an estimated 90 percent of the refugees seeking asylum in the past year.
“They do not deserve to be lumped together with criminals”, he said.
But Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said this morning, “I feel that we in the European Union are now committing ritual suicide and we’re just looking on”.
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“The percentage of declared Syrians among all of the migrants landing on the Greek islands has fallen considerably in the last several months”, Frontex said, adding that some 39 percent of those arriving in Greece in December were Syrians, compared to 43 percent in November and 51 percent in October.
