Europe braces for major 'humanitarian crisis' in Greece after row over refugees
EU ministers struggle to reach collective agreement on crisis as Austria and Macedonia press for reintroduction of national border controls
EU warns of humanitarian crisis as migrants move through Balkans – video
European governments are bracing for a major humanitarian emergency in Greece amid rising panic that the EU’s fragmented efforts to cope with itsmigration crisis are nearing breakdown.
EU interior ministers met in Brussels on Thursday in their latest attempt to forge a common response, but the meeting was clouded by a ferocious row between Greece and Austria, which is spearheading a campaign to quarantine Greece and throttle the flow of migrants up the Balkans by partially sealing the Greek border with Macedonia.
If Greece is cut off from the rest of Europe’s free-travel Schengen area, Berlin predicts a humanitarian and security emergency within days.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU commissioner in charge of migration, said contingency planning for a major aid operation was highly advanced and would be finalised within days. “The possibility of a humanitarian crisis of a large scale is there and very real,” he said.
A senior EU official involved in the planning said “the humanitarian dimension inEurope is becoming much more important than it has been until now”.
The shift in focus from taking in refugees to dealing with the consequences of keeping most of them out amounts to an admission of abject failure in developing coherent EU policies on the crisis.
Athens reacted furiously to the latest developments, recalling its ambassador from Vienna, accusing Austria of 19th-century behaviour, and blaming Europe for creating a crisis it was now preparing to relieve.
