Humanitarian fears hang

Balkan countries along the well-trodden migrant path towards northern Europe met Wednesday to explore ways to stem the flow despite growing fears that tighter controls will spark a humanitarian crisis, particularly in Greece.

Athens has angrily protested at being excluded from the ministerial meeting in Vienna, sparking a tetchy response from Austria, underscoring the rifts in Europe over how to tackle the crisis.

The talks come after figures showing Europe's migrant headache continuing to rage, with over 110,000 people arriving in Greece and Italy so far this year alone, following more than one million in 2015.

A total of 413 people lost their lives on the journey, including 321 on the way to Greece, the International Organization for Migration said.

The influx has boosted anti-immigration parties, driven a wedge among many of the 28 members of the European Union and thrown into doubt the continent's cherished passport-free Schengen Zone that is crucial for commerce.

Amnesty International hit out Wednesday at Europe's "shameful" response, saying most EU countries had "simply decided that the protection of their borders is more important than the protection of the rights of refugees".

So far joint EU efforts to halt the influx, including a deal with Turkey to stem the mass exodus of migrants across the sea to Greece, have failed to bear fruit.
As a result, countries throughout the western Balkans have begun unilaterally to impose restrictions, sparked by Austria's much-criticised introduction last week of daily migrant limits.

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leiter said as she opened the Vienna meeting that in the absence of a functioning EU strategy, the talks would discuss ways "to stop the migrant influx through the Balkans".

"We believe in European measures and we are working on them. But while we wait we have to take national measures," she said.

In the latest such move, Macedonia has closed its frontier to Afghans and introduced more stringent document checks for Syrians and Iraqis seeking to travel to northern and western Europe.

The restrictions have caused a bottleneck of thousands of people at the Greek-Macedonian border.

On Wednesday, around 3,000 people were waiting at the Idomeni crossing point with Macedonia, police said, with the Macedonians allowing 860 people through overnight.

Greek authorities were attempting to take hundreds by bus back to Athens, but were being hindered by a blockade of motorways by farmers protesting for weeks about tax and pension reforms.

Yiannis Mouzalas, Greece's minister responsable for migration, said that there were currently some 12,000 migrants stuck in the country, with hundreds more arriving every day.

Macedonia, which is not an EU member, said it had tightened its entry rules in reaction to steps taken by countries further along the western Balkan migrant route.
"We did not take a unilateral decision," Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki told Germany's Bild daily in an interview published Wednesday.

"There were decisions taken by Croatia and Serbia not to let Afghans pass through their borders who can't prove they are from a conflict area."

- 'Chaos and confusion' -

EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Dutch Migration Minister Klaas Dijkhoff said Tuesday they were "concerned" by the developments and by the "humanitarian crisis that might unfold".

Their fears were echoed by Filippo Grandi, the new head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR on a visit Tuesday to the Greek island of Lesbos, where many of the migrants who survive the perilous sea crossing from Turkey come ashore.

"I am very worried 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.

Cash-strapped Greece, struggling to cope as the main entry point for migrants into the EU, was however not invited to the Vienna meeting of ministers from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

"Through this one-sided and not at all friendly move towards our country, there is an attempt to take decisions in Greece's absence that directly affect Greece and Greek borders," the Greek foreign ministry complained.

Austria, which controversially last week imposed a daily limit of 80 asylum claims, retorted that it was a "fixed" meeting format and its summary would be available to EU interior and justice ministers when they meet on Thursday in Brussels.

Austrian Foreign Minister said that Greece "is not prepared at present to reduce the influx... On the contrary it wants to continue waving them through".
Source :AFP