Is there a plan B to tackle the Refugee crisis?

This so-called Plan B is a sign of rapidly waning confidence in other European Union policies to deal with the migration crisis—in particular in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s game plan of relying mainly on Turkey to stem the human tide, the Wall Street Journal writes.

The European Commission in Brussels, which is preparing contingency plans for what it considers an imminent humanitarian crisis in Greece, has publicly condemned the Austrian decision. But several EU officials said privately that such a crisis in Greece would have a beneficial side effect of deterring Europe-bound economic migrants.
They also argue that bottling up the migrants in Greece would be more manageable than having them stranded in poorer, non-EU neighboring countries in the Balkans, through which they currently travel to get to Germany and other northern European countries.
During fractious talks among interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday, several people present said the Greek migration minister made an impassioned plea to EU counterparts not to ringfence Greece as nationalist leaders in Central and Eastern Europe, notably Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico,have long demanded.

Austria-Balkan countries tightening of borders
But the ringfencing is already happening, as Austria and the Balkan countries over the past week have coordinated a tightening of their borders and started to send back Afghan migrants, resulting in more than 10,000 people being stuck in Greece. On Thursday, the Greek government recalled its ambassador to Austria—a rare move within the EU—in outrage over the border controls and for being left out of a meeting of Balkan countries called by Vienna on the crisis.
Some European officials are now looking to a March 7 summit of EU and Turkish leaders as a deadline for the bloc’s existing migration strategy, particularly the cooperation with Turkey and a NATO sea-monitoring mission, to yield fruit. If it doesn’t, it will become more imperative, they warn, to stop migrants from traveling farther north and to speed up preparations for assisting Greece with a possible humanitarian emergency.

“Greece wouldn’t be the worst place to have a humanitarian crisis for a few months,” one EU official said, adding that the population there was much more refugee-friendly than those in the Balkans or Eastern Europe.
Sealing off Greece won’t become declared EU policy as it would run counter to its oft-proclaimed values of human rights and equality among its 28 governments. And some governments remain implacably opposed.Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, said Thursday that closing borders would lead to “a cascade of failures, a failure with a domino effect.”

Germany,​which has taken in the vast majority of refugees who have arrived in Europe over the past year, is also continuing to push for a deal with Turkey. Under it, Ankara would take back migrants and fight human smuggling so that fewer people leave its shores, in return for €3 billion ($3.3 billion) of EU aid and other concessions.

But as the milder spring weather is expected to encourage even more migrants to make the trek, the EU is supporting tighter security measures at the Greek-Macedonian border and exploring legal ways to extend temporary border checks within Europe’s 26-nation passport-free travel zone.
As the first point of EU entry for most migrants, Greece is already required under the bloc’s asylum rules to register and shelter arriving asylum seekers before they are either sent back or relocated elsewhere in the EU. But overwhelmed and in dire economic straits, it has mostly allowed the newcomers to travel onward, most of them toward Germany. Effectively sealing off Greece’s northern border would force the matter.

Thomas de Maizière: Unacceptable for Germany to take the entire burden of refugees.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said Thursday that it was “unacceptable for Germany to take the entire burden of refugees.” If the Turkey plan wasn’t working by the March 7 summit, “we need to help Greece with the housing, relocation and return of non-refugees,” he said.
Dutch Migration Minister Klaas Dijkhoff backed the Austrian move to limit the daily number of migrants crossing its borders. “Time is running out and countries are thinking, ‘If the Turkey deal doesn’t work, what else can we do?’” he said.
The head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker last week offered Mr. Tsipras €500 million ($551 million) in EU funds to cope with people stranded in Greece, according to a senior EU official. According to Mr. Mouzalas, Greece’s costs relating to refugees would rise to €1 billion this year if people get trapped in the country.
Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud confirmed the EU executive was looking for ways to raise money to help Greece, but didn’t say how much.
EU officials speak of the need to restore EU law, meaning that Greece and other countries further north should present arriving migrants with a simple choice: either they file for asylum in their respective countries instead of traveling on to more affluent northern countries or they will be denied entry.
Several interior ministers, including Mr. Maizière, on Thursday insisted that the policy of waving through migrants to the next border must stop and that more must be done to assist Greece with a possible humanitarian emergency.
“The possibility of a humanitarian crisis of large scale is there, is very real and very near,” said the EU’s migration commissionerDimitris Avramopoulos. “In the next 10 days we need tangible results on the ground, otherwise there is a risk that the whole system will completely break down,” he warned.
Even the countries that voted in favor of relocation have been slow to follow through in offering spots to asylum seekers—only 500 people have been moved so far. In addition, Sweden and Austria, two of the champions of the relocation plan, are exempt this year from taking in people as they have already recorded the biggest share of asylum seekers per capita.
Even Italy, which is supposed to benefit from the program, is skeptical of the relocation strategy. According to two people familiar with the talks, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told fellow EU leaders last week: “I believe in resurrection, but I don’t believe in relocation.”