One of the EU’s most senior leaders has warned would-be economic migrants not to undertake a life-threatening journey to Europe.

In a dramatic appeal aimed at “potential illegal economic migrants”, the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, said: “Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money. It is all for nothing.”

Tusk was speaking after meeting the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, in Athens, where he pledged support for Greece, the country on the frontline of the migrant crisis, where up to 2,000 people are arriving each day, many fleeing conflict and violence in Syria and Iraq.

At least 10,000 people are stuck near Greece’s border with Macedonia at Idomeni, with the vast majority barred from travelling north in the hope of reaching Germany and other countries. The EU, which on Wednesday announced €700m (£544m) in emergency aid, is scrambling to avert a humanitarian catastrophe as it confronts the largest movement of refugees since the end of the second world war.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Tusk during a meeting at the Maximos Mansion in Athens. Photograph: Alexandros Vlachos/EPA

Tusk’s visit to Greece is part of an intensive three-day trip around the western Balkans that included a visit to the Dobova refugee camp in Slovenia on Wednesday.

From Athens he travelled to Ankara, where he urged the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, to take further steps to reduce the number of people travelling to Europe. The pair will meet again on Monday at an emergency EU-Turkey summit dedicated to tackling the crisis.

Tusk will now spend a further 24 hours in the Turkish capital waiting for an audience with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the hope of persuading him to take back those who have been turned away from Europe. Only “a fast and large-scale mechanism to ship back irregular migrants” would effectively “break the business model of the smugglers”, Tusk said.

Marooned in Idomeni: despair as refugees find their way blocked Read more

Last year the EU and Turkey signed a deal in which Europe offered to spend €3bn on helping some of the 2.5 million refugees in Turkey in exchange for help in reducing numbers travelling to Europe and reviving Turkey’s long-stalled EU membership talks. But Europe has expressed impatience with the continued high number of people making the perilous crossing over the Aegean Sea. Turkey has been unimpressed with the many weeks it took Europe to find the money, which has yet to translate into projects on the ground.

“Our joint action plan with Turkey is and will remain a priority,” said Tusk. “This ultimately means that the high numbers [of arrivals] we are still witnessing have to go down and quickly.”

Tsipras, who has previously warned that Greece is unable to cope and cannot become “a warehouse of souls”, on Thursday called for sanctions on EU countries that refuse to take in their share of refugees. He also demanded that the practically dormant procedure for relocating refugees stranded in Greece to other EU members should be drastically speeded up.

EU authorities in Brussels echo Greece’s calls for a European-wide approach, but have proved powerless to stop unilateral decisions by member states. Since September 2015, eight countries in Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone have reintroduced border controls. Hitting out against such unilateral action, Tusk said: “We have to avoid an illusion that instead of the full respect for Schengen rules, there might be another, easy and convenient European solution.”

As the Guardian revealed on Wednesday, EU authorities want all internal border controls to be ended by November 2016. The European commission is sto announce its action plan to “save Schengen” on Friday, to prepare the way for Monday’s meeting with Turkey, as well as an EU summit in mid March at which EU leaders will attempt to forge new rules on asylum and migration. But the commission’s wish for “a return to normalcy” seems like a tall order, as thousands continue to arrive on Europe’s shores each day.





