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With a special EU
summit on refugees approaching on March 7, German Chancellor Angela
Merkel continues to hope that Turkey will help Europe solve the
crisis. But patience has become thin in many capitals across the EU,
particularly in Eastern Europe.
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Refugee
Crisis Disunity: A De Facto Solution Takes Shape in the Balkans
Angela
Merkel is still hoping for a European solution to the refugee crisis.
But with patience running out, Austria has joined countries on the
Balkan Route to impose Plan B. But with the closure of borders, the
situation in Greece is becoming dangerous.
February 26, 2016 –
08:00 PM
It is a recent
Wednesday morning and on the glass-walled 20th floor of the Ringturm
highrise in the heart of Vienna, generals in their moss-green
uniforms have gathered along with other decorated military officers
and top-level government officials. The view is expansive, stretching
to the Vienna Woods in the east and to the forests on the banks of
the Danube River to the west. One can see as far as the Slovakian
border and to the lowlands at the border to Hungary -- two of the
frontiers the country intends to immediately begin protecting in an
attempt to block the inflow of more refugees, absent a functioning
European plan.
Defense Minister
Hans Peter Doskozil, a Social Democrat who has only been in office
for four weeks, is speaking to a small group. He is not one to shy
away from conflict. Instead of criticizing Austria for introducing a
ceiling on the number of refugees it is willing to allow into the
country each day, the minister says, the European Commission should
finally fulfill its obligation to come up with a European solution to
the refugee crisis. Otherwise, the current trends will only be
magnified, he says. "Every EU member state is currently
withdrawing to its own position and is taking its own national
measures."
It has been a week
of solo measures and heightened tensions within a deeply fractured
Europe. On March 7, the EU will once again attempt to find a solution
to the refugee crisis at a special summit meeting in Brussels. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel continues to place her hopes on Turkey, with
her plan calling for the country to stop the flow of refugees and
even take some of them back. But at the same time, countries along
the Balkan Route have begun taking measures of their own, with
Austria leading the way.
Now that Vienna is
only accepting 80 asylum applications per day at the Spielfeld border
crossing with Slovenia -- and now that other Balkan countries have
constricted the refugee flow in response -- migrants have begun
backing up in Greece. In his interview, Defense Minister Doskozil
makes no attempt to contradict the impression that exactly that
outcome was intended. Currently, he says, his ministry is examining
whether and how many soldiers should be sent to Macedonia to help the
country secure its border with Greece. That border has been closed to
Afghans since Monday, with only Syrians and Iraqis allowed to pass.
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, a total of only 150 refugees
entered Macedonian territory. On Thursday morning, another 100 were
allowed to pass, before Macedonia completely sealed off its border.
When and whether it will be reopened is unclear.
Giving Austria the
Middle Finger
One day earlier, the
Austrian government had held a conference on the refugee question in
Vienna, with only select countries on the Balkan Route invited to
attend. Greece and most other EU member states were not among the
invitees. Greece was furious at being excluded and reacted on
Thursday by recalling its ambassador from Vienna, a gesture that in
the diplomatic world is akin to giving Austria the middle finger.
Athens followed up on Friday by cancelling a planned visit to the
Greek capital by Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
Concern in Brussels
has been rising rapidly in recent days that the uncoordinated border
closures could result in chaos and perhaps even instability in the
Balkans. The European Commission has sought to put a stop to the
domino effect on the Balkan Route with strong words: Vienna's cap on
refugees is "incompatible with Austria's obligations under
European and international law," wrote European Migration
Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos in a harshly worded letter to the
Austrian interior minister. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean
Asselborn said on Thursday that Europe no longer has a plan. "We
are heading into anarchy," he said.
Greece has now de
facto become the collecting point for the vast majority of refugees
heading north. The country, says one EU diplomat candidly, "is
turning into a single enormous hotspot," referring to the plan
to establish central refugee registration points on Europe's
periphery. Greece has been in the throes of a deep economic crisis
for years and is now completely overwhelmed by the task of providing
food and shelter to tens of thousands of refugees. Some 12,000
migrants are currently stranded in the country and the four official
camps are hopelessly overcrowded. A spokeswoman from Doctors without
Borders says that if Afghans continue to be blocked from continuing
northward, the system will collapse "in just eight days."
Because there is "no realistic emergency plan," she says,
her organization is preparing for the worst. The European Commission
is likewise developing emergency aid so as to prevent the collapse of
the state on the Turkish border.
Dozens of buses with
around 5,000 refugees on board were stopped on the highway by police
earlier this week in Greece because the camps in Idomeni, on the
Greek-Macedonian border, were already filled beyond capacity. Some
500 people continued on foot, walking along the highway and spending
the night alongside angry farmers who have been blocking traffic with
their tractors in recent weeks to protest against Tsipras' austerity
policies. They are shameful scenes that played out across the country
-- all symbolic of European failure.
'A Miracle'
The situation in the
Greek capital is particularly dramatic. The most recent focal points
of crisis can be found among the ferry terminals at the port of
Piraeus and on Victoria Square in the heart of Athens. Hundreds of
people are camped out on the square, sleeping on the ground and
loitering in the streets. The burgeoning chaos is reminiscent of the
situation in Hungary last summer when Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
allowed the situation to become so intolerable that Chancellor Merkel
responded by opening the borders.
Hassan Mohamadi, a
lanky 26-year-old from Afghanistan, knew nothing of the disarray when
he disembarked from the ferry Blue Star 1 at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday
morning. Holding his wife's hand with one hand and his five-month-old
daughter with the other, he said that morning that he was happy again
for the first time in a long while. Some 1,300 migrants from the
islands of Lesbos and Chios arrived in Athens that morning on board
the Blue Star 1.
"It is a
miracle that we have arrived," Mohamadi said, adding that he and
his family had been underway for 12 days, having fled their village
of Qur due to poverty, suicide bombings and Islamic State, which has
begun expanding in Afghanistan. Mohamadi wants to continue on to
Germany, but for now he and his family are stuck in Athens. He looked
uncomprehending when he learned that he would be unable to continue
his journey northwards. At the port, a migrant smuggler approached
him and said: "If you have money, I can bring you there."
The trip to Germany via the new route through Albania goes for around
€3,000.
In parliament this
week, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said: "We will not accept
turning the country into a permanent warehouse of souls,"
threatening that Athens would block EU decisions until the
distribution of refugees among member states is implemented. "We
will not tolerate that a number of countries will be building fences
and walls at the borders without accepting even a single refugee,"
he said. But what might the consequences be? Is the threat from
Athens merely an empty one?
Deputy Foreign
Minister Nikos Xydakis spoke with SPIEGEL by phone to address such
questions. "Since Sept. 23, when the first refugee summit took
place, there have been many subsequent meetings. In October, Turkey
took part and we agreed on a joint plan, with Turkey agreeing to take
back a generous number. But neither Turkey nor EU member states have
adhered to the agreement. Germany promised to maintain the status quo
at its border until the next summit on March 7, but that failed as
well."
Greece, Xydakis
says, is all alone. "So why should we adhere to any new
agreements?" He says that Greece could begin exercising its veto
beyond just the refugee summit and use it on all EU issues where
unanimity is required.
'Greece's Closest
Ally'
SPIEGEL has learned
that Athens is considering declaring a state of emergency and
applying for EU aid to cope with the refugee situation. Thus far, the
government in Athens has declined taking such a step out of political
considerations. But doing so now, Athens believes, could push EU
member states to show solidarity with Greece in the refugee crisis.
The man who is
primarily responsible for preventing refugees from continuing on
their northward journey out of Greece is Gjorge Ivanov, the president
of Macedonia. At his residence in Villa Vodno, in southern Skopje,
Ivanov makes the claim that "Macedonia is Greece's closest
ally." But things look different in reality. Relations between
the two countries have been tense ever since Macedonia became an
independent state, primarily because Greece is unwilling to accept
that its neighbor to the north has the same name as one of its own
provinces. Europe is a complicated continent.
The closing of the
border to Greece, Ivanov says, was merely a reaction. "Whenever
a country to our north restricts its borders, we do the same,"
he says. Macedonia, Ivanov continues, made it clear that it would
only be able to tolerate 2,000 migrants at a time making their way
through the country. Macedonia may not be in the EU, but it is still
behaving more responsibly than some EU member states, the country's
president insists. He says he could no longer wait for a decision to
be made in Brussels, otherwise Macedonia would have been overrun by
refugees. "In times of crisis, each country must find its own
solutions."
Ivanov's words are a
requiem to the vision of a Europe that can find joint answers to
problems that individual countries cannot confront on their own.
Solidarity is a word
that has failed to gain traction in Eastern Europe. Members of the
Visegrád Group, made up of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, share a common past as communist countries and often see
themselves on Europe's periphery, both geographically and
psychologically. Governments of those countries have the backing of a
population that is broadly skeptical of welcoming refugees into their
midst.
Among political
leaders in the Videgrád Group, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
is the most influential opponent of Merkel's refugee policies. This
week, he announced that he intended to hold a referendum on the
distribution of refugees among EU states as was agreed to last
September. Voters will be asked: "Do you want the EU to
prescribe the mandatory relocation of non-Hungarian citizens to
Hungary without the approval of the Hungarian parliament?"
Doing Germany's
Dirty Work
People in Brussels
and Berlin are furious with Orbán because of the move. European
Parliament President Martin Schulz told SPIEGEL: "According to
the distribution plan, Hungary is supposed to take a mere 1,294
refugees. I don't understand how you can hold a referendum against
that, unless one sees it as an additional step away from a Europe of
solidarity and common accountability."
The likelihood that
the EU refugee summit on March 7 will find success is diminishing by
the day. And Chancellor Merkel is increasingly isolated with her plan
to solve the crisis with the help of Turkey. Many Eastern European
politicians and EU diplomats don't believe that Merkel's Turkey
solution will yield rapid results. Skepticism is widespread in Vienna
as well, with hardly anyone believing that the problem can be solved
by sending a few billion euros to Ankara. "And if it can,"
says a member of Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz's staff,
"then we have to make it much clearer to Turkey what we expect
-- that they prevent refugees from traveling onward but also that
they stop bombing the Kurds."
Displeasure with the
Germans is growing for another reason as well: Even as Berlin is
criticizing the measures that countries on the Balkan Route have
taken, Germany has profited from them as well in the form of plunging
numbers of refugees entering the country. "We are doing the
dirty work for the Germans," says one Eastern European EU
diplomat.
Austrian Defense
Minister Doskozil agrees. "Germany should be more grateful to
us." Austria, he says, is merely ensuring that countries along
the Balkan Route are coordinating with one another. The criticism
from Germany "is completely incomprehensible," he says,
adding that the refugees are being sent north in an orderly fashion.
"There is an alternative," he says. "We could just
allow them all to haphazardly continue to Germany."
By Giorgos
Christidis, Katrin Kuntz, Walter Mayr, Peter Müller, Jan Puhl and
Mathieu von Rohr
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