Athens accuses Vienna of undermining efforts to reach Europe-wide response by siding with hardline EU members who refuse to take refugees

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Greece has recalled its ambassador to Austria amid growing tensions between the two countries over Vienna’s strong-arm approach to the handling of Europe’s migrant crisis.

Enraged at its exclusion from a mini-summit of Balkan states convened by Austria on Wednesday, Athens hit back denouncing what it described as diplomacy that had “roots in the 19th century”.



At the meeting nations along the migrant route agreed to step up restrictions, including closing borders, to stem the number of immigrants flowing into Europe, effectively stranding thousands in Greece.

Issuing a furious statement, the Greek foreign minister, Nikos Kotzias, said Athens had recalled its ambassador “to preserve friendly relations between the states and the people of Greece and Austria”.

“The big problems of the European Union cannot be handled with thoughts, mentalities and supra-institutional initiatives that have their roots in the 19th century,” the statement said. “Such acts undermine the foundations and the process of European unification.”



The move reflected mounting anger in Greece over what is perceived as unjust criticism of its frontline role handing the crisis.

With the longest sea border in Europe and its proximity to Turkey, the EU member state says it cannot be blamed for being the main gateway into Europe of those fleeing war and mayhem in the Middle East.

'We will not give up now': hope and despair as refugees gather in Athens Read more

With some 20,000 Afghans and other migrants trapped in the country following Macedonia’s snap decision to increase border controls on Sunday, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, threatened to veto EU agreements if action wasn’t taken to ameliorate the situation.

“We will not accept turning the country into a warehouse of souls,” he told the Greek parliament after blasting Austria for its “unacceptable” behaviour.

The EU migration commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Thursday that unless the flow of migration weakened in the next 10 days, “there is risk the whole system will completely break down.”

The numerous splits in Europe over immigration policy were fully evident in Wednesday’s Vienna meeting, which was unilaterally called by Austria and snubbed both the Germans and the Greeks.

Speaking before a crucial meeting of European ministers in Brussels on Thursday, the Greek migration minister, Yannis Mouzalas, said Greece would not be left by the rest of the EU to become the “Lebanon of Europe” by hosting millions of migrants and refugees.

“A very large number here will attempt to discuss how to address a humanitarian crisis in Greece that they themselves intend to create,” Mouzalas told reporters. “Greece will not accept unilateral actions. Greece can also carry out unilateral actions. Greece will not accept becoming Europe’s Lebanon, a warehouse of souls, even if this were to be done with major [EU] funding.”

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, pressed last week for a special summit on 7 March with Turkey, in an attempt to revive a faltering pact with Ankara that pays the Turks to stem the flow of refugees to Greece.

EU members opposed to German-backed refugee quotas and the Turkey pact instead want to quarantine Greece and seal the country’s northern border with Macedonia, effectively shifting the border-free Schengen zone’s external frontier from the Aegean to central Europe. Eastern Europe, Austria and Slovenia want to help Macedonia close the Greek border.

Hungary has meanwhile called an anti-immigration referendum aimed at stopping Brussels and Berlin forcing it to take in refugees under any EU quota schemes.

Four million refugees have fled Syria for the relative safety of neighbouring countries, according to the UN with more than 1 million in Lebanon. Greece is the main entry point for refugees to the EU, with most of them crossing the Aegean Sea to Turkey via the Greek islands.

At least 102,500 people have arrived on the Greek islands of Samos, Kos and Lesbos this year, according to figures this week from the International Organisation for Migration. A further 7,500 have reached Italy, and, in the first six weeks of 2016, 411 people died attempting to make the journey.

In 2015 the threshold of 100,000 arrivals was not reached until the end of June. As spring approaches and the weather improves, the rate of arrivals this year is expected to climb further.

The IOM said 20% of the arrivals were from Afghanistan and nearly half were Syrians.

Already divided over what to do about mass immigration, the EU faces further fragmentation as governments rush to impose national border controls from central Europe down to the Balkans, leaving Greece as the entry and end point for many migrants entering the EU from Turkey.



After Austria’s decision last week to allow in no more than 80 asylum seekers daily, Slovenia is following suit and sending troops to its frontier with Croatia, while Belgium announced new border controls with France this week.