Around 5,000 migrants were waiting at the border wishing to continue their journey across Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and then Austria, with Germany the final goal for most. Greek police have been removing hundreds of migrants from a camp at the country’s border with Macedonia and putting them on buses bound for Athens, where they will be housed in an army-built camp.
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– The European Union and United Nations criticized the new restrictions, with the EU’s executive arm saying it would raise the issue with the countries in question.
The move has stranded thousands of Afghans and others in Greece, where an average of 4,000 asylum-seekers land each day, even though some of the Afghans could potentially qualify for asylum.
A diplomatic spat broke out between Greece and Austria, while Vienna lashed out at Germany’s “contradictory” refugee policy. That creates a bottleneck of refugees that is hurting nations further south, including European Union member Greece, the first point of landing for most of the migrants arriving by boat from Turkey. “Greece, too, can take unilateral action”.
France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the eviction would be done “progressively, by persuasion and with respect for people’s dignity”.
At least 102,500 people have landed on Greek islands including Samos, Kos and Lesbos this year, and 7,500 in Italy, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement.
Such countries say they have no choice, citing a building resentment against asylum seekers at home, overburdened refugee systems and heightened concerns that militant extremists are blending in with migrants.
On Tuesday, Greek police cleared the railway tracks near the Greece-FYROM border crossing of Idomeni where Afghan refugees who were denied entry into FYROM were staging a sit-in protest.
Migrants continued to camp outside and sleep rough at the Macedonian border overnight as organized facilities there remained filled to capacity.
The Austrian cap on the number of people it will admit each day prompted Macedonia to prevent Afghan migrants from crossing last weekend and to slow the rate at which asylum-seekers from Syria and Iraq were allowed to cross.
The latest in the series of filters wreaked havoc in Greece, with up to 6,000 people stuck at Idomeni, a village on the border with Macedonia, as thousands were still arriving on the islands and at Athens’ port Piraeus. “Firstly, it is a major undertaking, and secondly, refugees, who have already suffered enough, should not be subjected to this procedure in each country that they enter”, he added.
Austria has told European officials the country would not back down on the limits, however, and the Vienna meeting reveals a growing consensus among EU members and non-members alike to act on their own, without coordinating with the European Commission or other institutions.
Athens also hit out at Vienna for failing to invite Greek representatives to a meeting on the crisis with ministers from western Balkan states today.
“Germany has to decide what signals Germany wants to send”, Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told press after talks with her counterparts from Western Balkan countries, where most migrants cross on their way from Greece to Germany.
Austria and several Balkan countries are “putting particular pressure on Greece as it struggles to deal with larger numbers of people in need of accommodation and services”, UNHCR said. “The Schengen Area must also work in the future”. Journalists were refused access to the area.
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In Calais, authorities maintained the sprawling shantytown, which cropped up years ago but mushroomed last year in the midst of the migrant crisis, is a sanitation risk.
