Brussels, 22/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - Austria has called a mini-summit for Wednesday 24 February to discuss the Western Balkans route, ahead of a formal meeting of EU home affairs ministers. The goal of the informal meeting is to take stock of the situation in the region following Vienna's decision to set a daily limit on the numbers of asylum seekers and refugees moving on to other countries that it will allow to cross its border.
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Montenegro and Serbia have been invited to the meeting, reports the Bulgarian agency Novinite. The Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU has also organised a meeting ahead of the formal ministers' meeting, which will take the form of a breakfast bringing together the main countries concerned - including Austria, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Discussions by heads of state and/or government on Thursday 18 February at the European summit on the decisions to restrict the numbers entering Austria produced mixed responses. The situation of Greece, which fears that other member states will lock it out of the Schengen area of free movement, was also discussed at the European summit, with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras calling on his partners not to make any definitive decisions on their internal borders.
Greece also drew attention to problems on its border with FYROM, which has prevented Afghan migrants from entering its territory, the daily Ekathimirini reports.
The number of migrants entering Hungary illegally has also rocketed in recent days, the Hungarian police announced on 22 February. More than 500 migrants were arrested after entering the country illegally between Friday and Sunday by climbing over the barbed wire fence erected a year ago by the Hungarian government along the borders with Serbia and Croatia. This number is almost as high as for the whole month of January when 550 people were arrested, according to official statistics. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)