Reducing migrants ‘question of survival for EU’: Austria

Greece has found itself a “frontline” state as hundreds of thousands of refugees cross the Aegean from Turkey. IOM figures show that past year, that number of crossings wasn’t reached before June.

Golestani, wearing a tracksuit top of the German soccer champions Bayern Munich, said he was afraid to return home.

“The Taliban are killing people like us, young people who are trying to get an education”.

Merkel is a strong proponent of the principle of open borders, a right that is at the core of the European Union.

Around Golestani, families ate sandwiches, a man read the Quran, and children ran around the square and blew soap bubbles. National elections are not scheduled until next year.

On Monday, Belgium announced that it had reintroduced border controls on its frontier with France.

Austria has responded to critics in Europe saying they will have the chance to address their concerns at a meeting of European justice and interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday.

It is leaving a growing bottleneck of people stranded. “We are not one, two, three, four, five humans to pay the money”.

Refugees and migrants are helped by volunteers as they arrive on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to Mytilene, Lesbos island, Greece, on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016. Authorities said the mostly Afghan migrants were being put on buses bound south for Athens.

Migrants continued to camp outside and sleep rough at the Macedonian border overnight as organized facilities there remained filled to capacity. As a result, countries throughout the western Balkans have begun unilaterally to impose restrictions, sparked by Austria’s much-criticized introduction last week of daily migrant limits.

The practical effect of the steps they agreed on during a meeting in Vienna on Wednesday is likely to keep more of the migrants in Greece, the primary point of entry into the European Union by people coming from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other troubled countries. The government is planning to set up several temporary shelters to try and deal with the crisis.

Those aboard said they were going home voluntarily after their bids for asylum were rejected.

The Interior Ministry said a plane carrying the migrants landed in Kabul Wednesday. Most are fleeing war and persecution and in need of worldwide protection.

But Leggeri said “practically nearly no migrants can be returned to Turkey”.

Idomeni border crossing demanding passage. We are asking for decisions already taken to be implemented. But the European Union – led by Germany – fears that the move would overwhelm Greece, where more than 850,000 people landed and passed through past year. What we have been urging for a long time is for a common strategy in order to deal with the refugee crisis in Europe.

Orban has said migrant quotas would redraw the ethnic, cultural and religious map of Hungary and Europe.

Austria has come under criticism for organising the talks – notably from Greece, which was not invited and complained it would bear the brunt of decisions made there – as well as for its decision last week to let only 3200 people into the country per day, of whom only 80 can apply for asylum.