Greece on Monday lashed out at what it called “lies” by its EU partners following calls for Athens to be suspended from the Schengen passport-free zone if it fails to staunch the flow of migrants into Europe.
At a tense meeting of EU ministers of the interior in Amsterdam, Austria and Germany urged Greece — the European gateway for thousands of migrants each day — to do more to tackle the continent’s worst migration crisis since World War II.
However, Greek Minister of Immigration Policy Yiannis Mouzalas insisted his country — already buffeted by a debt crisis that almost drove it out of the euro last year — is doing its best in difficult circumstances.
“We are tired to listen that we cannot secure our borders,” Mouzalas told reporters in Amsterdam. “We are told that we don’t want coastguards, it’s a lie — we want more coastguards.”
The short sea crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands accounted for most of the 1 million migrants and refugees who arrived in Europe last year, but Mouzalas said it would be illegal under international law to push them back.
Ewa Moncure, spokeswoman for EU border agency Frontex, also stressed the illegality of turning asylum seekers away from Greek waters.
“Under international law, every person who crosses a European border can claim asylum,” Moncure told reporters.
She said Greece’s geography, with its scattered islands and long coasts, made it practically impossible to stop the arrival of flimsy boats carrying people fleeing conflict and misery in the Middle East and elsewhere.
However, the rest of the EU is turning up the pressure on Athens.
Last week Austrian Minister of the Interior Johanna Mikl-Leitner warned that Athens could face “temporary exclusion” from Schengen, the 26-country zone of mainly EU countries that embodies the European dream of free movement.
However, in Brussels, European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud on Monday said that there was no plan to suspend Greece.
“We have never discussed either a suspension or exclusion. The possibility does not exist,” she said.
Austria, Germany and several other Schengen member states have already reintroduced temporary checks at their internal borders, raising fears the passport-free system could collapse.
During a press conference after Monday’s talks, Dutch Secretary of State for Security and Justice Klaas Dijkhoff suggested the border checks could go beyond the current limit of six months because of the exceptional pressure.
“Member states invited the commission to prepare the legal and practical basis for the continuance of temporary border measures,” he said.
Austria and Germany urged Greece to tighten its external EU borders.
“Greece has to reinforce its [border] resources and accept help,” Mikl-Leitner told reporters in Amsterdam, adding it was a “myth” that the Turkish sea border could not be secured.
German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere — whose country’s decision last year to open its doors to 1 million asylum seekers sparked anger in transit countries — urged Greece to “do its duty.”
“We want to save Schengen, we want common European solutions, but the clock is ticking,” De Maiziere said, adding that a deal with Turkey to staunch the influx is the key to solving the crisis.
Signed last year, the deal involves Brussels paying Ankara 3 billion euros (US$3.2 billion) in aid for Syrian refugees and speeding up its EU membership process, in return for Turkey tackling people smugglers and improving conditions for refugees.
The payment has been held up by concerns that Turkey is not complying, but EU High Representative of Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini said during a visit to Ankara on Monday that she was confident Turkey would get the money “in reasonable time.”
Brussels is also exploring other ways to stem the flow of migrants, particularly through the Western Balkans.
The European Commission confirmed that it had sent a mission to non-EU Macedonia to discuss how it could help staunch the large numbers passing over the border from Greece.
It said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had replied to a letter from Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar, who last week called for Macedonia to effectively seal off its border with Greece and staunch the flow through the Balkans.
Dijkhoff said the member states asked the commission to “explore the possibilities” for Frontex to “provide assistance at the border.”
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS