Thousands of men, women, and children are stranded between Greece and the Balkans after the sudden imposition of new border restrictions for Afghan refugees on the Western Balkans route this week. Afghan migrants, who have been blocked by authorities in neighboring Macedonia, are being taken to Athens, in the south of the country.
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Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia imposed controls after the heads of their police forces met last week.
Austria and Slovenia’s daily cap on asylum seekers and their joint restrictions with the other three countries had left almost 700 people, mainly Afghans, barred from crossing from Macedonia into Serbia, UNHCR said. Serbian authorities say they must register in Macedonia but Macedonian authorities are refusing to let them back in. “(We are) responding to public sentiment now: “we Hungarians think introducing resettlement quotas for migrants without the backing of the people equals an abuse of power”, he said on Wednesday.
More than a million migrants and refugees passed through Greece previous year, many of them fleeing conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan.
Cazeneuve described Belgium’s move as “a unusual decision” and rejected fears that hundreds of migrants would move into Belgium.
“I am very anxious about the news that we are getting about increasing closures of European borders along the Balkans route because that will create further chaos and confusion”, Grandi said.
Greece is maintaining its threat to take unilateral action if other European Union nations take actions that would force Athens to shelter ever more migrants and refugees. Austria’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz will attend the meeting, hosted by Vienna’s Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
Faymann, joined at a press conference by Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner, rejected recent criticism from German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere that Austria allows too many asylum seekers to pass through its territory and onward to Germany. Instead, he said, they “are only interested in transporting the refugees as fast as possible to central Europe”.
Yesterday, Greece slammed Austria for drastically restricting migrant crossings and for inviting officials from western Balkan countries to discuss the migration issue in Vienna, but excluding Greece.
The IOM says 413 people have died so far this year, about the same number as this time last year.
“It wounds Europe and will burden our country with something it does not deserve”.
“We need measures that lead to a… a domino effect”.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte ― whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency ― to complain after the foreign ministry blasted the Austrian meeting as “one-sided and not at all friendly” towards Athens.
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The package foresees special centers being set up to quickly process migrants who have little realistic chance of winning asylum and means that some asylum-seekers – likely including some Syrians – will have to wait longer to bring relatives to Germany.
