New
Fences on the Old Continent: Refugee Crisis Pushes Europe to the
Brink
Even
as Chancellor Merkel continues pursuing a deal with Turkey, Austria
and its Balkan neighbors to the south have taken things into their
own hands. With fences going up across the region, Greece is in
trouble and the EU can't figure out what to do. By SPIEGEL Staff
March 04, 2016 –
08:38 PM
A rickety gate of
galvanized wire is all that separates desperation from hope. The gate
is part of the fence erected in the farming village of Idomeni on the
border between Greece and Macedonia. At this moment, some 12,000
people are waiting for it to be opened.
It's the gateway to
Europe and the gateway to Germany.
A woman in boots and
a blue uniform stands guard in front of the gate. Her name is Foteini
Gagaridou and she is an official with the Greek border police -- and
she looks exhausted. All it would take for her to open the border
would be to pull a thin metal pin out of the latch, but she's not
allowed to.
If it were up to
her, she says, she would let every single one of these people pass
through, just as they were able to do just a few weeks earlier --
across the border to Macedonia and on through Serbia, Croatia and
Slovenia to Austria, where they could continue their journey to
Germany on what is known as the Balkan Route. It's the same path
chosen by hundreds of thousands of refugees last year, but the Balkan
Route is now closed. It ends at Gagaridou's wire gate.
Scenes of
Desperation
This is where
Fortress Europe begins, secured with razor wire and defended with
tear gas. Desperate scenes played out here on Monday, reminiscent of
those witnessed in Hungary back in September. A group of young men
used a steel beam as a battering ram to break down the gate. Rocks
flew through the air as the gate flew off its hinges, prompting the
volleying of tear gas cartridges and stun grenades from the
Macedonian side. Men could be seen running and children screaming.
One woman lay on the ground with her daughter, crying.
This frontier has
become Europe's new southern border, with Greece serving as Europe's
waiting room -- and the possible setting for a humanitarian disaster.
Around 32,000 migrants are currently stranded in the country, a
number that the Greek Interior Ministry says could quickly swell to
70,000. The aid organization Doctors without Borders is even
expecting 200,000 refugees. Greece's reception camps are already
full, and the highly indebted country is stretched well beyond its
capacity.
The decision as to
whether and how many refugees will be able to cross the border isn't
one for border guard Gagaridou to make. Rather, it will be taken by
the Macedonian government. Macedonia, for its part, is pointing
fingers at countries further to the north, noting it is they who have
tightened their borders, especially Austria, which created a chain
reaction of border closures last week. The countries apparently felt
they could wait no longer for the broader European solution German
Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised will result from a special EU
summit scheduled for March 7.
Merkel wants to see
Turkey stem the flow of refugees and put a stop to the exodus to
Europe. European leaders agreed on Feb. 18 that this plan remains the
"priority." But Austria and the Balkan states nevertheless
moved ahead and closed their borders.
The New Europe of
Fences
Idomeni has become a
symbol of the current political chaos in Europe and the crumbling of
a joint European refugee policy. The town is emblematic of the new
Europe of fences. It is here that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's
open border policies have met their end. Under Austria's leadership,
the Balkan Route has been closed in the precise move Berlin had hoped
to avoid.
Merkel has begun
warning of the EU's disintegration "into small states" that
will be unable to compete in a globalized world, as well as of the
possibility that border controls might soon be reintroduced all
across Europe.
Were Europe in
agreement, it would be unproblematic to accommodate 2-3 million
refugees, given the Continent's population of a half billion people.
From such a perspective, the current spat actually seems somewhat
ridiculous. But in the run up to next week's EU summit, Europe is
gripped by strife. Europe's greatest achievement, the opening of its
borders through the Schengen agreement, is at stake, and the
increasingly toxic atmosphere between countries has reached alarming
dimensions.
First, Austria
decided not to invite Greece to the West Balkan Summit the week
before last, at which an agreement between 10 countries was reached
to close the borders. Athens was rejected because it is viewed as
having followed a policy of simply waving refugees through. In
response, Greece withdrew its ambassador from Vienna and cancelled
planned meetings in Athens with the Austrian interior minister.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico in turn warned Greece that if
the country didn't move to secure its borders that, "there will
be one single hotspot and it will be called Greece." Perhaps, he
added, it may be necessary to sacrifice Greece for the sake of
Europe's well-being.
The refugees are
encountering a Europe that was already fatigued and disunited even
before their arrival, weakened as it had been by years of the euro
crisis, frequent disagreements between Germany and France (once the
motors of European unification), anxiety over the special wishes
demanded by Britain and the threat of Russia's aggressive stance in
the east. In a Europe where immigration policies are among the most
controversial issues and right-wing populism is on the rise seemingly
everywhere, nationalist tendencies have emerged as a frequent specter
since the very beginning of the refugee crisis.
The Limits of German
Power
Europe's weakness,
though, is also the product of a Germany that is having trouble
fitting into its leadership role on the Continent. For decades,
German politicians have sought to eschew expressing Germany's own
interests, instead emphasizing what is best for Europe and trying to
be the best Atlanticists possible, exercising restraint when it came
to their role in the EU.
This changed during
the euro crisis. Merkel took advantage of the country's economic
strength in order to pursue German interests. Paramount among these
interests, she believed, was a stable euro, and to achieve that she
imposed levels of austerity on Southern Europe that left her at times
looking like a stern and scolding school teacher. Germany assumed a
dominant role in Europe.
That may also have
influenced Merkel at the outbreak of the refugee crisis to announce
policies that had been conceived in Germany -- with her now famous
line "We can do it" -- but that would also inevitably have
consequences for the rest of Europe. She did this without consulting
with others. In that sense, this sentence, as nice as it may have
sounded, was also a pretension to power. It hid a European "we"
inside the German one. No previous chancellor had done such a thing
before, but the limits of German power were quickly exposed. Rather
than slipping into Merkel's "we," most of Germany's
partners instead formulated their own positions and blocked the
admission of any appreciable number of refugees or pursued their own
strategies for keeping them at bay.
Indeed, the notion
of a united Europe is currently under extreme duress, and no summit
or compromise on refugees is going to be able to fix that overnight.
The Europe of today is a collection of states that have become
dangerously foreign to each other.
For Chancellor
Merkel, Monday's special EU summit is decisive because she wants to
show in the run-up to important regional elections in Germany on
March 13 that her refugee policies are actually starting to have an
impact. To the majority of voters in her party, the conservative
Christian Democratic Union, this means lowering the number of
refugees arriving in Germany.
Merkel is still
focusing primarily on a deal with Turkey. Prior to the summit,
Germany and Brussels launched a significant diplomatic offensive to
make the meeting a success. European Council President Donald Tusk
visited Turkey on Thursday, preceded by the deputy chief of the
European Commission, who traveled regularly to Ankara for talks. The
message from Europe to Turkey is that the action plan agreed to in
the fall needs to be implemented.
In order to be able
to push Ankara to take back as many of refugees as possible, Greece
is seeking to declare Turkey as a safe country of origin. Last week,
Ankara signaled to EU officials for the first time that it could
imagine the possibility of at least taking back economic migrants.
'A Turning Point in
Refugee Policy'
In order to avoid
appearing totally isolated in Europe, Merkel has recently set about
slowly, but very clearly, transforming the main emphasis of her
refugee policies. Although Merkel, like many others, initially pushed
for the distribution of the refugees across the EU, the German
chancellor is now emphasizing border protection as the highest
priority.
No one in the
Chancellery is speaking anymore of the kinds of humanitarian gestures
seen in September, when Merkel opened Germany's borders to the
thousands of refugees stranded in Budapest. The German public mood
has changed and the populace would not be pleased were Berlin to
allow the refugees currently trapped at the Macedonian border to come
to Germany. Chancellery officials may view the crisis in Idomeni as
proof that border closures lead to chaos, but the closures have been
advantageous to Merkel nonetheless, even if Berlin officials aren't
saying as much. The number of refugees coming to Germany, after all,
has dropped significantly.
Others in Germany,
though, are admitting the advantages. "There has been turning
point in refugee policy through the closure of most of the Balkan
Route," Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer told SPIEGEL. "Germany
is a beneficiary." It is a statement that puts Seehofer in
agreement with the government in Vienna, which has accused Germany of
making a public fuss about the border closures while profiting from
the development at the same time.
Ugly Images, Welcome
by Some
As ugly as the
images coming from Greece are -- and they even have the potential to
get worse in the coming days -- they are unlikely to cause too many
European governments to lose any sleep. They send a message of
deterrence to those who might be considering making the trip. On
Thursday, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country currently
holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, said he wants to
see no new refugees arriving in Greece in the future. "We need
to bring it back to a level from which we can see zero," he
said. "It has to be really considerably lower than it is today."
During a visit with
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday, European Council
President Donald Tusk appealed to "economic migrants" not
to come to Europe. "Do not believe the smugglers," Tusk
said. "Do not risk your lives and your money. It is all for
nothing. Greece or any other European country will no longer be a
transit country."
Many of the migrants
now being held up in Greece -- the majority of whom want to continue
on to Germany -- are assembling in and around Athens. Ferries
transport them from the Greek islands to the harbor at Piraeus in the
Athens urban area. They disembark the ferries by the hundreds, with
weary faces and carrying plastic bags and backpacks. They often have
children in tow and can sometimes be seen pushing the elderly in
wheelchairs out of the ship's belly. Sometimes a ship arrives
carrying as many as a thousand refugees.
Piraeus these days
feels more like a catchment basin than a harbor. It's not known
precisely how many refugees are currently staying in the port area,
but estimates put the figure anywhere from 1,500 to 5,000. They've
used towels and cardboard boxes to build shacks, with tents erected
in the rare places that have any lawn. Laundry dangles from seemingly
every small palm or spruce tree as it dries. Families are camped out
in the waiting halls.
Camping Out in
Athens
Meanwhile, hundreds
of Afghans are spending their nights on Victoria Square in Athens,
where they string up plastic tarpaulins from bare tree branches to
protect themselves from the rain. When asked how she feels about the
scenario unfolding in front of the windowpanes, a café owner breaks
down in tears.
Thousands are now
residing outside the city center, for example at the old Elliniko
airport along Athens' southern coast across from Aegina island.
Journalists are currently banned from entering these "official"
camps, allegedly because those helping the refugees have been
overwhelmed by the media attention. It is largely Afghan nationals
who are being housed here, people who have little to no chance of
being able to continue their journey. There are no shower facilities
and only nine Porta-Potties can be found in front of the entrance.
The stench in the terminal building is oppressive, with heaps of
trash piling up between tents and blankets.
A small and wiry
Greek woman named Hala runs back and forth between the tents. She
holds her mobile phone in front of her mouth like a Walkie-Talkie.
She's the sole person responsible for ensuring that the hundreds of
people staying here are provided with water and at least something to
eat. Hala says the situation here is "surreal."
Scenes like this are
one of the reasons that Greece will top the agenda at Monday's
summit. Merkel wants to prevent the country from drifting into chaos.
"We did not keep Greece in the euro to abandon the country now,"
she says.
On Wednesday, the
European Commission announced that €700 million in emergency aid
would be earmarked for Greece and other countries heavily affected by
the refugee crisis through 2018. Just recently, the EU dispatched
experts to the affected areas in order to work together with the UN
Refugee Agency to build up the infrastructure necessary for providing
care to the refugees. It's the first time that a humanitarian relief
mission has ever been conducted inside the borders of the European
Union.
Fending for
Themselves
The Greek government
itself ignored the refugee crisis for as long as it could. It pursued
a strategy of merely waving the refugees through as they arrived in
the country. Athens knew that it would soon be stuck with the entire
burden if it didn't. And that, it appears, is exactly what is
happening now.
The thousands of
refugees in the tent city at Idomeni have been left to fend for
themselves because, officially, the camp still doesn't even exist.
The Greek government is also hopelessly overstrained in other places.
For a long time, the country wasn't even registering refugees after
making the crossing from Turkey to one of the Aegean Islands. After
his election in January 2015, Tspiras at least established a
Migration Ministry, albeit with a miniscule staff of 20.
In October, his
government promised to set up shelter capacity for another 50,000
people within three months. In addition, so-called "hotspots"
were to be set up on five Aegean islands to receive and count
refugees and then transfer them to the mainland.
But very little
happened. By January, only a single reception facility had been
opened, on Lesbos. This is why the Greek prime minister has involved
the last institution in his country that is still able to act
reliably and quickly: the military. Greek soldiers are now to erect
tent camps and repurpose barracks as provisional living spaces in
Athens, Thessaloniki and elsewhere. The decision came so unexpectedly
that some mayors only learned from the newspapers that their
municipalities would soon be home to thousands of migrants.
Giannis Mouzalas
openly admits that his country is not able to handle what is
currently taking place. Greece, he notes, is still suffering badly
from the effects of the euro crisis. Mouzalas, the minister
responsible for immigration, is sitting with tired eyes in his office
at the Interior Ministry. He repeatedly points out that it is a
humanitarian crisis. "Actually, everything," he answers
when asked what kind of help his country needs the most. He goes down
the list: containers, personnel, tents, food, medical assistance. And
money, of course.
'What Are We
Supposed to Do?'
"The situation
in Piraeus is horrifying," Mouzalas says. The faster images of
the misery are disseminated around the world, the better, he says, so
that aid might finally arrive. And it needs to come quickly -- before
Greece sinks into chaos.
Mouzalas, who isn't
a member of the ruling Syriza party himself, nevertheless defends his
government's policies. He says there was never a time when Greek
officials simply "waved refugees through," as they have
been accused of doing. "What are we supposed to do if they don't
want to be here?" he asks.
When asked how the
Greek and European refugee problem should be solved, he is vague,
saying only: "We'll see." He lights a cigarette and says he
hopes that the plan being hammered out with Turkey will be
successful. "That's actually our last chance," he says.
Ironically, Mouzalas
says, relations between Germany and Greece are better now -- in the
middle of the refugee crisis -- than they have been in years. Germany
has provided extensive help to Greece from the very beginning, he
says, particularly by taking in so many people.
The place where the
dramatic developments in recent weeks got their start is the
Spielfeld border crossing on the Slovenian-Austrian border. Only 80
asylum applications per day are now being accepted here, with 3,200
people being allowed through if they intend to travel onward to
Germany. By imposing such limits, Austria set off a domino effect
throughout the Balkans, essentially closing off the route all the way
down to Macedonia.
Officer Michael
Puchegger only allows those refugees to pass who don't make any
mistakes. Their passport can't be forged, they cannot have an entry
in the international criminal registry and they have to give the
right answers to the questions they are asked at the border.
It is here -- where
not that long ago some 8,000 refugees were passing through each day
-- where the clash of cultures can be better observed than anywhere
else. Refugees who are afraid of Fortress Europe encounter a Europe
that is afraid of refugees.
Questions at the
Border
On a recent Tuesday,
Nayah, from Aleppo, covered in black from the top of her head to the
soles of her feet like her mother, drags herself and her three
children the final few meters to the Austrian flag. Aside from her,
there are no other refugees around. The corridor she walks through is
secured on both sides by razor wire and there is a massive metal door
at the end. In between are metal turnstiles and a maze of fencing.
The first questions
are simple: Family name, first name, former place of residence. Then
comes the decisive moment: Where do you want to go? "Almania,"
says Nayah. The interpreter translates: "Germany."
"Why Germany?"
the police ask. Silence and mumbling comes in response.
The correct answer
only comes following a bit of friendly assistance from the
interpreter: "Because we want to ask for asylum in Germany."
"Five for Germany," the policeman calls out, and waves the
Syrians through.
Wrong answers at
this point in the journey would be: "I want to go to Germany to
work as a teacher," or "because my brother lives there."
Those who slip up, even just once, are sent back to Slovenia, and
from there, if they don't apply for asylum, onwards to Croatia,
Serbia, Macedonia and Greece.
It is rare that
Austria takes on the kind of leading role on the diplomatic stage
that it has in recent days. "Normally, we prefer to hide and to
say: Austria is such a small country, we would like to pay the
children's rate for our security, please," jokes one
high-ranking official in the Austrian Foreign Ministry. But these
days, the situation is reversed, with Vienna -- in this existential
EU crisis -- setting the tone regardless of what Berlin or Brussels
thinks. It's almost as though Austria once again wants to flex its
muscles in the Balkans, its Habsburg-era sphere of influence.
The push by normally
docile Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann has triggered annoyance in
Berlin and unequivocal rage in Athens. On Tuesday, Greek Prime
Minister Tsipras even went so far as to accuse Faymann of panic and
"spasmodic moves" due to upcoming presidential elections in
the country.
Faymann, a member of
the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), is indeed
under pressure. On the one hand, 29-year-old Foreign Minister
Sebastian Kurz, a member of Faymann's conservative coalition partner,
the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), is wildly popular. On the other,
though, the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), led
by Heinz-Christian Strache, is leading in nationwide public opinion
polls.
Fear in the East
It has only been
since Faymann freed himself from unquestioned loyalty to Angela
Merkel that his party's poll numbers have risen slightly. "Austria
is not a waiting room for Germany," Faymann said during European
Council President Donald Tusk's visit to Vienna on Tuesday. Germany,
the Austrian chancellor continued, should pick up its refugees from
Greece and countries neighboring Syria in the future. "In the
refugee crisis, we need common European solutions," Faymann told
SPIEGEL. "As such, I am proposing a fund to which every EU
member contributes, just like with the bank bailouts. The money
should be used to cover the costs of the asylum applicants."
On a per capita
basis, Austria received more asylum applicants last year than Germany
did. That means that criticism from Austria carries much greater
weight than that from countries to its east, where opposition is even
stronger. In most formerly communist EU member states, the
electorates are largely xenophobic and the belief is widespread that
refugees would bring epidemics, terrorism and Sharia law into their
countries. The influx, many in Eastern Europe believe, is but the
advance guard of an expansive Islam seeking to take over the
Christian West.
Far-right parties
across the region have profited from such fears, while Czech
President Milos Zeman has taken the lead in his country. "The
Islamic refugees are bringing Sharia into our country. That means
unfaithful women will be stoned, thieves will have their hands
chopped off and our beautiful girls will be forced to wear the
burqa," he has said.
From the Eastern
European perspective, the refugee crisis is a German problem. "It's
a simple concept. I invite guests over and when I decide there are
too many, I knock on my neighbor's door and say: Take care of my
guests," Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said in
mid-February.
The construction of
Fortress Europe, which was never supposed to be built, is quite far
along in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans. There are fences between
Turkey and Bulgaria, between Hungary and Serbia and between Greece
and Macedonia. Slovenia has once again begun using Yugoslavia-era
customs barracks on the Austrian border. There are still alternative
routes leading through Croatia and Albania, but soon, the Balkans
will only be traversable to those with even more money.
In the Serbian town
of Sid, authorities have established a kind of preliminary
deportation station. Here, roughly halfway between Greece and
Austria, those refugees who have been picked up along the trail are
divided into groups, with only Syrians and Iraqis allowed to continue
their journeys north. Afghans are now forced to turn around as are
those from the Maghreb, many of whom try to claim they are from
Syria. Croatian police check out the migrants right on Serbian
territory.
All Eyes on Turkey
Construction of the
fortress is continuing regardless of what the EU decides at its
summit on Monday. Indeed, the expectations are low for the gathering.
It's not even clear if the summit will result in a summit statement,
as is normally the case. Whereas Germany would like to see a binding
document, Poland and Hungary don't, arguing that the focus of the
meeting will only be on the implementation of previously agreed
measures.
Angela Merkel's top
priority is a deal with Turkey in an effort to protect the EU's
external borders. The Greek border is of particular concern and both
NATO and the European border control agency Frontex have been tapped
to reimpose order there.
Officials in the
Chancellery believe that the first step must be that of bringing
illegal immigration into the EU almost completely to a stop. All
other issues will get short shrift at the summit. The idea of
establishing mandatory refugee quotas for EU member states is dead.
Instead, Ankara is to be offered that a "Coalition of the
Willing" will accept refugees directly from Turkey, but only
after the border is secured -- if the country agrees to take back
economic migrants.
As such, Turkey is
to be the guest of honor at the summit. First, EU heads of state and
government will meet together for lunch with Turkish Prime Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu before EU members meet amongst themselves without
their guest from Ankara.
EU politicians are
already talking about significantly increasing their offer of €3
billion in financial aid for Turkey. European Commissioner Günther
Oettinger told SPIEGEL: "Europe should offer Turkey further
financial support beyond 2017. When it comes to the regular payment
of benefits that Turkey offers refugees in the form of shelter and
food, annual sums quickly add up to six or 7 billion."
Thus far, Turkey
hasn't done much to stop migrant smugglers or to prevent refugees
from traveling onward to Greece. To be sure, the EU implementation
report that will be presented at Monday's summit is careful to praise
every truck and boat full of refugees stopped by Turkish authorities.
But there has not been a sufficient reduction in the number of
refugees crossing the Aegean into Greece. In February, 56,335
refugees crossed the narrow strip of sea from Turkey's west coast to
the Greek islands -- for a daily average of 1,943.
Traffic at the
Border
For Europe, it is
also alarming that the share of Syrians among those now arriving to
Greece is plunging. "The numbers reflect a dropping percentage
of Syrians (from 69 to 38 percent) and a growing percentage of
Afghans (from 18 to 24 percent) and Iraqis (from 8 to 25 percent),"
according to the report.
How does the EU
intend to confront such migration pressures in the future? How can
the Schengen agreement, which guarantees border-free travel within
the EU, and the Dublin Regulation, which regulates asylum
applications, be saved? The dangers to Europe as currently
constituted are not just visible at the razor-wire fences in Southern
Europe, but also in Kiefersfelden, the Bavarian mountain town on the
border with Austria.
On "travel
days," when vacationers and day-trippers make their return
journey toward Munich from the mountains around Kitzbühl, traffic
now backs up in the town. Locals hardly go out on the streets anymore
and customers from Austria, who used to regularly frequent the town's
shops, no longer come at all. The reason for the changes is the fact
that the nearby A93 highway has for months been reduced to a single
lane due to border controls. The result is a traffic jam stretching
almost 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into Austria. And a huge amount of
traffic in Kiefersfelden as people try to avoid the backup.
"If there was a
fire at peak traffic times, not even the fire department would be
able to make it through," says Mayor Hajo Gruber. He says the
Bavarian interior minister has promised that traffic on the A93 will
no longer be reduced to a single lane for border checks in the
future. "I'm hoping for some relief," Gruber says. "The
federal police badly needs more personnel and different structures if
it wants to avoid these traffic jams."
The Bavarian threat
to use its own state police to implement strict border controls in
the future is also taking shape. The Bavarian Interior Ministry and
state police force have already asked Gruber where they might be able
to set up mobile office units for border control officers.
The Costs of Losing
Schengen
The recent
hindrances to cross-border traffic are minor in comparison to the
drama taking place in Southern Europe. But it shows that a Europe of
open borders is endangered everywhere, even in places where cohesive
trans-border regions have developed.
According to a
European Commission report, the reintroduction of internal border
controls within the Schengen area would reduce EU economic output
over a 10-year period by between €500 billion and €1.4 trillion.
Just the direct costs for border controls will cost between €5
billion and €18 billion annually.
Europe is risking
its future by closing its borders. Not only will its economic power
suffer, but also its global political influence. In the concert of
large geopolitical powers, individual European countries do not have
a loud voice, not even Germany. The United States and China are only
interested in the EU as a whole. Size is decisive. If Europe is
unable to present itself as a unity, it will be marginalized.
Nothing would make
European dissent more clear than the reintroduction of controlled
borders on the Continent. Furthermore, the European project lives,
both at home and abroad, from the successful unification of erstwhile
enemies. And the current disagreement over refugee policy has
threatened to destroy that unity. It is akin to gambling with the
Continent's future. Europe in recent decades has become known as a
liberal continent, whereas Fortress Europe would scare away the very
people the countries of Europe would most like to attract: students,
experts, engineers and scientists.
Mid-May to mid-July
marks a decisive phase for the Schengen area. That's when the
temporary border controls currently in place -- allowed by the
Schengen agreement in "exceptional circumstances" -- are
set to expire. If Greece is unable to tighten up its external border
by then, which seems likely, then the internal border controls may be
extended by two years.
Progress on the
Refugee Issue
The European
Commission plans to present a roadmap on Monday. It calls for the
removal of all internal border controls, including those undertaken
by Germany, should the EU's external borders be adequately protected
by the end of the year. Berlin has thrown its support behind the
plan.
In the next several
weeks, the Commission intends to make progress on the refugee issue
with a variety of initiatives. Among them is the reform of the Dublin
Regulation. The rule requires refugees to apply for asylum in the
first EU country in which they set foot, but it has been de facto
suspended since the beginning of the crisis. The Commission proposal
calls for asylum applicants to be distributed among EU member states
for the duration of their application proceedings. That would shift
the burden away from member states on the EU periphery to all
European countries. In addition, it calls for the alignment of the
divergent asylum standards applied by member states.
Finally, the
European border control agency Frontex could be expanded into a real
border protection agency. That, at least, is the proposal made by the
Netherlands, in its capacity as the current EU Council presidency.
Greece in particular would like more support when it comes to border
protection. But a proposal calling for European border officials to
be deployed on the borders of an EU member state even over objections
from that member state is a controversial one. Countries like Poland
and Greece see that as a significant violation of their sovereignty.
In Piraeus, the port
city next to Athens, the huge blue cargo doors slowly sink to the
quay as the cavernous ferry opens. The sound of chains scraping
across the concrete and a shrill beeping fills the warm air as Blue
Star 1 lands. The trip from Mytilini, on the island of Lesbos, via
Chios to Athens normally takes 11 hours, but the Blue Star 1 arrives
only after a five-and-a-half hour delay due to strong winds on the
northern Aegean.
Doaa Darwish, 25,
sits on a low wall in front of the Pericles ferry terminal. She is
wearing leggings and rubber boots, a silver ring pierces her left
eyebrow. Behind her, baby sleepers are drying on a laurel bush in the
midday sun. Doaa Darwish is from Yarmuk, a suburb of Damascus -- and
she has finally arrived in Europe along with her three-month-old son
Alaa and her two younger sisters. They traveled through the war zone
to the Turkish city of Antakya and then on to the Greek islands of
Farmakonissi and Leros via the city of Izmir on Turkey's west coast.
She medicated her baby for the boat trips so he would stay calm.
Stuck for 10 Days
The trip took 25
days and was so stressful that Doaa stopped lactating. Her sister
Walaa heads off in search of powdered milk. The sisters hope to
continue their journey as soon as possible, with their first
destination being the city of Idomeni on Greece's border with
Macedonia. Doaa's husband, who is in Berlin, has sent her the
telephone numbers of men who can help her get to the border. One of
them wants to bring her directly to Macedonia. But his asking price
is high.
"We are three
young Syrians with an infant," says Doaa. She thinks that will
convince the Macedonian border guards to let them cross and will help
them as they travel onwards to the north. The youngest, Esmaa, has
only just turned 14. She had to come along because, as a minor, she
is the one that makes them eligible for family reunification once
they get to Berlin. Only then can they apply for their parents from
Damascus to join them.
Doaa says that she
is so agitated that she can't sleep anymore, adding that, from what
she has seen so far, she isn't particularly fond of Greece. She says
it's disgusting here and that she has tried to avoid visiting the
restrooms. Instead of eating, she smokes. The sisters take turns
charging their smartphones. One of them always stays on the wall in
front of the laurel bush, the only place where they can get free
Wi-Fi reception.
When Walaa comes
back, she looks horrified. She says: "Some people have been
stuck here for 10 days already!" But that won't happen to them,
she says. Doaa nods.
By Giorgos
Christides, Julia Amalia Heyer, Walter Mayr, Peter Müller, Ralf
Neukirch, Conny Neumann, René Pfister, Jan Puhl, Mathieu von Rohr
and Christoph Scheuermann
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