Greek PM Furious With Both Dutch and Austrians Over Migrants

February 23, 2016

Following Greece’s strongly worded protest to Austria for imposing drastic migrant crossing restrictions and for calling a meeting of Balkan states on the migrant crisis without including Greece, PM Alexis Tsipras blasted his Dutch counterpart over the phone today for not enforcing the agreement reached at last week’s European Council summit over migrants.
First, the Austrian ambassador to Athens was summoned yesterday to the foreign ministry to receive the diplomatic complaint, while Greek officials described Austria’s invitation to Balkan countries for a meeting on migration in Vienna tomorrow, without Greece’s participation, “a unilateral move which is not at all friendly toward our country.”
For the record, police at the Greek border with FYROM had to remove hundreds of Afghan migrants stranded at a camp there while journalists were not allowed to approach the area. The migrants were to be taken to an army-built camp near Athens that was set up last week, following European Union pressure on Athens to complete screening and temporary housing facilities.
On Monday, about 600 Afghans had protested on the railway line between Greece and FYROM. A number of them climbed the border fence and were arrested by FYROM police.
The relief agency International Rescue Committee said FYROM’s decision to turn Afghans away was “yet another example of arbitrary, unilateral decisions by individual states threatening to cause serious humanitarian consequences for desperate refugees.”
Bill Frelick, refugee program director at Human Rights Watch, accused EU countries of turning a blind eye to the plight of Afghan asylum-seekers.
“Once again, Europe is resorting to closing its borders to asylum-seekers, instead of coming up with realistic policies to address the plight of those fleeing war and repression, he said.
“By pushing the refugee crisis back into Greece and Turkey, other European and EU countries are ignoring their obligations toward legitimate asylum-seekers.”
In addition, a Greek migration ministry source on Tuesday said nearly 4,000 people who landed at Piraeus had been shared out between available facilities in Athens, but hundreds more were arriving on a daily basis on ferries from the islands.
FYROM authorities “are rejecting EU screening documents, it’s a scandal,” a Greek migration ministry official said.
The Austrian government’s decision to ask FYROM to seal off its southern border and to move closer to the position of the Visegrad group — Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – on the migration crisis has angered not only Athens but Berlin as well.
“One must recognize that Austria has already taken 100,000 refugees…but I think it is making a very big mistake by placing itself alongside these countries,” Greek alternate minister for migration Yiannis Mouzalas told Vima radio on Monday.
“We are not happy,” a German source told EUobserver a few days ago over Austria’s unilateral measures on the migration crisis. “We are against nationalist solutions.”
However, the government of the Netherlands has also decided to engage in “nationalist solutions” to the migration crisis, hence the angry call of Greek PM Alexis Tsipras to his Dutch counterpart today.
The irony of the matter is that the Netherlands are currently in charge of the Presidency of the European Union, but this did not stop its government from not enforcing what was agreed at last week’s European Council summit.
In the meantime, alternate migration minister Yiannis Mouzalas spoke today on SKAI TV of a coup orchestrated against the European Council conclusions of February 18-19, 2016 by heads of police of the five countries.
Nonetheless, Mouzalas said that the problems created for Greece by FYROM’s decision in particular to seal off its southern border with Greece, while it may cause temporary havoc, can be overcome if Greeks remain united.
In addition, government spokeswoman Gerovassili said that the Greek government may, if necessary, request additional financial support from the European Union in order for the country to fulfill its part in accordance with the European Council conclusions of February 18-19, 2016.