Refugee crisis: European leaders demand urgent support for Greece

Athens asks EU for €480m in emergency funds as Brussels prepares for two key summits and aid agencies condemn ‘unconscionable’ response to influx.

   Aid agencies and NGOs have said Europe’s “unconscionable” response to the refugee crisis is courting humanitarian disaster, as Brussels scrambled to prepare emergency summits and desperate scenes unfolded across the continent, from Greece’s border with Macedonia to a makeshift camp outside Calais.

   With the EU entering what many see as a make-or-break phase in tackling the crisis, the bloc’s most senior leaders called for urgent action to support Greece as at least 8,500 refugees and migrants remained trapped without permanent shelter on the country’s closed northern border with Macedonia.

   Frontex, the EU’s border control agency, said 30 times as many migrants entered Europe in January and February as in the same two months of last year, and the UN’s refugee agency announced that 131,724 people had crossed the Mediterranean – the vast majority of them reaching Greece – so far in 2016, almost as many as made the journey in the first six months of 2015.

   The UNHCR said the continent stood “on the cusp of a largely self-induced humanitarian crisis”, with governments “not working together despite agreements … and country after country imposing new border restrictions”.

   In a scathing statement, Human Rights Watch condemned the EU’s “utter failure to respond collectively and compassionately to refugee flows”.

   Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Europe must deal decisively with “the difficult situation” in Greece, while the European council president, Donald Tusk, demanded support for Athens. Readiness to stand by Greece was “a test of our Europeanness”, Tusk said.

   “The number of migrants arriving in Greece is on the rise not because they want to make Greece their home, but because they are hoping they will move on from Greece to other European countries,” he said as he embarked on a round of shuttle diplomacy before an emergency meeting with Turkey on Monday and a summit of EU leaders on 18 March.

   Facing an average of 2,000-3,000 new refugee arrivals from Turkey each day, Greece said on Tuesday that the influx threatened to overwhelm its already overstretched resources and asked the EU for €480m (£375m) in emergency funds to help it shelter up to 100,000 refugees if needed.

   “We cannot bear the strain of all the refugees coming here,” said Olga Gerovassili, a spokeswoman for the Greek government. “These are temporary measures, there needs to be a permanent solution on where refugees will be relocated.”

Πηγή: The Guardian