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GreekReporter.comGreeceAustria Warns Greece About Exclusion from Schengen Zone

Austria Warns Greece About Exclusion from Schengen Zone

refugeesGreece has received more pressure on the refugee crisis on Saturday as Austria‘s Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner warned that Athens faces “temporary exclusion” from the Schengen zone.
Earlier in the week Athens criticized a Financial Times report alleging several European ministers and senior European Union officials said that threats of suspension from the passport-free zone could persuade Greece to protect its borders more effectively.
Deputy Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas said the report contained “falsehoods and distortions” but Mikl-Leitner said temporary exclusion was a real possibility.
“If the Athens government does not finally do more to secure the (EU’s) external borders then one must openly discuss Greece’s temporary exclusion from the Schengen zone,” Mikl-Leitner said in an interview with German daily Die Welt.
“It is a myth that the Greco-Turkish border cannot be controlled,” Mikl-Leitner insisted.
“When a Schengen signatory does not permanently fulfill its obligations and only hesitatingly accepts aid then we should not rule out that possibility,” she added.
“The patience of many Europeans has reached its limit … We have talked a lot, now we must act. It is about protecting stability, order and security in Europe,” she insisted.
Greece has received severe criticism from several EU partners for failing to stem the refugee influx and guarding its borders effectively. About 3,000 migrants reach Greece coming from Turkey on a daily basis. Some are asylum seekers from war-torn Middle East. Others are economic migrants from Middle East and Africa.
From Greece, the vast majority of them cross to Europe looking for a better life in more affluent countries like Germany and Sweden.
Last month the EU ruled out excluding Greece from Schengen, with Luxembourg’s Minister of Immigration Jean Asselborn observing that “it is not legally possible to exclude a state from the Schengen zone.”

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