Athens has turned down a request by Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner to visit Greece next week on Friday, until Austria rolls back the unilateral measures agreed during a meeting with Balkan states in Vienna on Wednesday, according to an Athenian-Macedonian news agency.
Advertisement
“Greece will not become a Lebanon or a warehouse of souls”, said migration minister Yannis Mouzalas.
“We are trying to slow the flow (to the border) until a solution is reached”, a migration ministry source told AFP.
Authorities in Greece said 4,000 people were waiting at the border.
Faced with an overwhelming flow of migrants, Greece faces increased sheltering and organizational demands as numerous migrants and refugees are spread in the country, taking the nation’s highways to walk toward the northern border with former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Further chaos loomed as a French court approved the partial evacuation of the “Jungle” migrant camp near the port of Calais on the coast, a move that Belgium fears will send Britain-bound migrants its way.
Last weekend, Macedonia barred entry to Afghans at its border with Greece.
The net number of non-EU migrants also rose slightly, to 191,000 from 188,000 a year earlier, indicating steps taken by the government to curb migration from outside the bloc, such as higher minimum earnings requirements, have had limited success.
In Serbia, police said they been formally notified by Croatia and Slovenia that only 580 people per day would be allowed to cross the border.
Belgium has chose to impose checks at the border with France to stop people coming from the Calais camp, a decision that French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Thursday branded “strange”.
Macedonia has all but closed its border with Greece, blocking the path for migrants who are continuing to arrive at the rate of thousands daily, leading some to wonder whether a route through Albania would be viable.
Migrants wait to cross the Greek-Macedonia border near the village of Idomeni, northern Greece, on February 24, 2016. Some were sleeping rough in central Athens, and others in stadiums.
On the Greek side, Afghan families boarded almost a dozen buses for the long trip back to the capital, where they will be temporarily housed in relocation camps, police said.
The Catholic humanitarian organisation Caritas tweeted that Thursday night’s ferry from Lesbos had not departed, “leaving refugees and migrants stranded”.
About 2,000 people land each day on Greek islands from Turkey, but police chiefs of Balkan states to the north have said their countries will let fewer than 600 cross their borders daily.
The island risked becoming “one big camp if refugees and migrants continue to arrive without any option to leave”, it said.
Yiannis Mouzalas branded Vienna’s decision not to invite Greece to a mini-summit on the topic as “hostile”; Athens has since recalled its ambassador from Austria over the row.
The border closures are squeezing Greece between the Balkan nations to the north and Turkey, from where most of the refugees are arriving.
Hungary, increasingly a recalcitrant European Union member since Prime Minister Viktor Orban gained power in 2010, has called for a national referendum on the EU’s plan for mandatory quotas for refugees.
Advertisement
A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. The moves, by the foreign and interior ministers of the 10 countries, come amid Europe’s preparations for another surge in people fleeing war and poverty in West Asia as the weather turns warmer.
