“Do not come to Europe”, said Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, which represents the bloc’s 28 leaders. Do not believe the smugglers. It is all for nothing.
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Under the rules, which most European countries have signed up to, whatever country a migrant comes into first is where they are supposed to be identified, fingerprinted and a decision taken if they have made an appeal for asylum.
Greece is rapidly becoming a pressure cooker. He beseeched people desperate for a better life to please help Europe by staying away.
He compared “panic” and “chaos” in the European Union with Turkey, which is housing more than 2.5 million refugees.
Some European countries such as Austria and Macedonia implemented restrictive measures on their borders aimed at decreasing the number of arriving migrants and refugees. Nearly every day, a new migrant camp opens. Merkel has stood by her policy of accepting legitimate refugees, while much of the rest of Europe is increasingly resisting.
Kurz said last year’s opening of borders was “a serious mistake” that prompted more migrants to set off.
Tusk spoke in Athens after meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras as up to 10,000 migrants piled up at Greece’s northern border with Macedonia, which has allowed only a trickle of people to cross. Tusk stressed that the main European Union goal is not just to weaken the flow of migrants and refugees, but to eliminate it. Later Thursday, he was to visit Turkey, from where the vast majority of the roughly 1 million migrants who entered Greece over the past 14 months crossed over in smuggling boats.
“I know the border is closed but I want to go to Germany, I will try, try, try”, said Mohamed, an Egyptian who plans to pay smugglers to sneak into Macedonia through the hills.
Refugees and migrants sit on the ground as they wait to cross the Greek-Macedonian border near the Greek village of Idomeni on Thursday.
“We can not imprison people, that would contravene global agreements”. Aid agencies warned of a possible risk of infectious diseases, given the area’s limited resources. “People are very restless with families, with children, women, [because] they have been here for many days and there doesn’t seem to be a resolution to this”.
The EU chief was in Athens as part of a regional tour on the migration crisis ahead of a summit on Monday between the EU and Turkey, the gateway for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees, many from Syria, hoping to start new lives in Europe.
The emergency summit on Monday will address the economic problems caused by individual countries imposing border controls in an effort to stem the inflow of undocumented travellers.
Tsipras said Greece would continue to do whatever it could to ensure no migrant or refugee was left helpless.
The migration crisis continued to show itself to be a flash point across the Continent on Thursday. They aim to leave financially wrecked Greece to seek asylum in a country that can offer them more, such as Germany or Sweden. Scuffles have broken out this week as the French authorities tried to dismantle the camp.
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Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is expected to announce on Friday a detailed plan for managing migrants.
