Brussels, 29/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 29 February, Austria reacted angrily to the words of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who had called on the European Union the day before not to abandon Greece to the migration crisis.
Vienna “does not need to be preached to”, retorted the Austrian Home Affairs Minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the agency APA reports (our translation). “Clearly, some people think that the 'European solution' (migration crisis) is for everybody to end up in Austria”, she said.
According to the Greek government, 70,000 migrants could be “trapped” in the country during the month of March due to blocks imposed by the countries of the Western Balkans, such as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which is filtering crossings of its border.
“Is it seriously possible that the countries of the euro fought to the very last to keep Greece in the euro (…) so that ultimately, a year later, we allow Greece to plunge into chaos, so to speak?”, Merkel had told a programme broadcast by the public channel ARD, calling on the EU not to “abandon” Athens in this way, AFP reports (our translation).
On the same day, the Greek minister for migration policy, Yannis Mouzalas, had announced on the channel Mega that nearly 20,000 people are currently stranded on Greek soil and that between “50,000 and 70,000 individuals” could be trapped in March.
On 26 February, Slovenia and Croatia, along with Serbian FYROM, decided to limit to 580 the number of people transiting through their territory each day. On 17 February, Austria opted to limit the entry of migrants to 80 asylum seekers per day, and 3,200 people in transit.
“The problem is that they acted alone and arbitrarily and that's not right when it means leaving a country out in the cold. Germany's responsibility is for this problem to be sorted out with all of the countries and not at the expense of one country”, the Chancellor added.
On 25 February, during an informal meeting of the Home Affairs Ministers of the EU (see EUROPE 11499), the European Commission and the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU suggested that radical measures, some of which will be at Greece's expense, may be taken after 7 March if the EU/Turkey summit, followed by a formal summit of the European leaders, fails to make any progress. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)