Brussels, 16/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - European Council President Donald Tusk, speaking alongside Alexis Tsipras during a visit to Athens on Tuesday 16 February, said that making Greece leave the Schengen zone would not solve the migration crisis, which issue will be on the agenda for discussion by heads of state and/or government on Thursday 18 February.
“Greece did not cause this crisis, nor did Europe. To all those talking of excluding Greece from Schengen, thinking this is a solution to the migration crisis, I say: No, it is not.” Excluding Greece from Schengen “does not end the war in Syria. It does not end Europe's attraction of migrants. And it is not a common European solution”, said Tusk.
His comments come as Europe's leaders are preparing once again, on Thursday, to discuss the migration crisis and the still significant influx of migrants arriving in Greece. According to the IMO, 78,333 people reached Greek shores in January and, on Thursday, the heads of state and/or government will repeat their call for the EU's external borders to be strengthened while stressing that the still timid implementation of the decisions taken in September on relocating refugees continue.
The debate could, nevertheless, be less tense than usual. On Tuesday 16 February, Greece announced that four hotspots - of the five promised - were up and running. In addition, on Monday 15 February, the countries of the Visegrad group (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) were seen by some sources as talking more positively and with a more pro-European tone.
The four Visegrad countries called for the agreed European strategy to be implemented, in particular on strengthening external borders by means of the new European border guard and coastguard agency and also the action plan with Turkey. The four say they are prepared to wait and see if this strategy works. One source described this discourse as more pro-European. The four countries have not, however, ruled out reconsideration of Schengen were this European solution to fail.
“What is needed now is for tangible progress to be achieved, for it to be shown that results are possible and close to hand, and for (the decisions taken) to be implemented”, said a diplomatic source from one of the major countries on Tuesday morning. Schengen has to be defended, too, and control of external borders recovered, for example, by reaching agreement by June on the new European agency. “But before that”, the source said, “the flow of refugees, which is still much to great, has to be reduced as a matter of urgency” and that “as spring is approaching”.
The same source, highlighting the efforts made by Greece in putting the hotspots in place, suggests that there is greater reason for optimism on the relocation of 160,000 refugees. Not having the hotspots, the source said, made it more difficult to get relocation off the ground.
The best solution, in the view of this source, still remains resettlement of refugees directly from third countries, a goal which the member states hope to be able to achieve once they have tightened the external borders and stemmed the arrival of irregular migrants into the EU. A meeting to discuss resettling refugees from countries such as Turkey, in particular, will be held on Thursday morning in the Austrian Embassy in Brussels, on the sidelines of the European summit. A number of volunteer countries are expected to take part, including Germany and France, too.
On Wednesday evening, on the initiative of Council President Donald Tusk, a dinner will be held in Brussels at which discussion will be devoted to the Balkans route. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)