“Balkan Route” permanently closed

In recent weeks, Austria and Balkan countries have coordinated a tightening of their borders, moves that have effectively limited the number of people able to continue north from Greece to fewer than a hundred a day. The restrictions have left tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Greece after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey.
By Tuesday, FYROM said it had completely closed its borders to migrants crossing from northern Greece—part of a chain reaction after further border restrictions in Slovenia prompted Serbia to effectively shut down its southern and eastern borders to anyone without a proper visa or passport.
“Bearing in mind that the new regime is implemented by a member of the European Union (Slovenia), Serbia cannot afford to become a collection center for refugees,” Serbia’s Interior Ministry said late Tuesday.
European Council chief Donald Tusk took to Twitter on Wednesday to thank Balkan countries “for implementing part of EU’s comprehensive strategy to deal with migration crisis.” He added that the closure wasn’t the result of a series of unilateral actions, but a common decision of all 28 EU members.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras retorted on his Twitter page a few hours later, saying that the “EU has no future if it goes on like that.” Mr. Tsipras criticised Mr. Tusk: “We expect D. Tusk, president of EU28 to focus efforts on implementing our common decisions and not encourage those who ignore them.”
During the EU leaders’ summit on Monday, Mr. Tsipras was supported by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who pushed to water down the language about the Balkan route closure. Still, Ms. Merkel didn’t tell Balkan countries to re-open their borders, and the leaders’ final statement on Monday noted that the “irregular flows of migrants along the Western Balkans route have now come to an end.”
Some 8,500 people are currently stranded in the Greek village of Idomeni, on the northern border with FYROM, according to Greek officials, out of a total of some 36,500 migrants in the country.
The leaders of the EU and Turkey agreed at the Monday meeting on the outlines of a deal in which Ankara would take back migrants who arrive in Greece from Turkish shores, including Syrian refugees. But they cautioned they wouldn’t hammer out some important aspects of the accord until late next week.

Decisions of 28 EU states
The deal would operate under a one-for-one principle in which EU countries would take Syrian refugees from camps in Turkey for every Syrian refugee Turkey takes back from Greece.
In return, the EU agreed to speed up its work on Turkey’s EU membership application and Ankara’s bid for visa-free access for its citizens to the bloc. The EU is also set to increase the €3 billion it had already committed to help Turkey cope.
Also on Wednesday, European governments approved a new emergency fund for humanitarian crises, which is most immediately aimed at helping Greece cope with the migrants stuck on its territory. The €700 million fund would be disbursed over the next three years, with €300 million for the first year potentially being sent in the coming days following European Parliament approval.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive, said the Balkan border measures were in line with EU agreements to stop waving migrants through from one country to another. She said that the commission was aware of the risk that new migrant routes could open up and was in permanent consultations with countries in the region, including Albania, Bulgaria and Romania.

The response of Hungary
In response to the moves, Hungary extended a declaration of a crisis situation that is already in place in several border counties, increasing the number of police patrols and giving authorities more leeway to act.
The closure of the Balkan corridor “means for Hungary that we don’t know what reaction this will prompt from the illegal migrants already there,” Hungarian Interior Minister Sandor Pinter said at a news conference, expressing concern that migrants could try to travel through Hungary.
Hungary also plans to ensure nighttime lighting along its borders in the south and is ready to extend its razor-wire fence along its border with Romania within 10 days if needed, Mr. Pinter said.
source:WSJ