Austria to build border fence to manage migrant flow

“We also wish to raise the issue of respecting of Schengen [EU passport-free zone] rules in Greece”, he said, explaining that Greece is the first Schengen zone state through which most refugees enter Europe.

Lazar said that building another razor-wire fence on the country’s border with Romania should only be a measure of last resort but he made clear that the government plans to do so if necessary.

Austria’s decision is the latest in a series of tough measures taken by countries to tackle the continent’s worst migration crisis since World War II.

Barbed wire would be stored in nearby containers ready to be rolled out along the frontier if the situation escalated, officials said on Friday.

Hungary, has already built a fence in a few parts of its borders with Croatia and in Serbia, not allowing refugees to enter Hungarian soil.

Most European Union countries are likely to follow Sweden in re-imposing border controls to cope with the migrant and refugee crisis, Tusk said.

The move gives Ethiopia – a major hub for people trying to reach Europe – access to money from a 1.8 billion euro ($1.9 billion) trust fund. As we’ve noted several times, that sets up the distinct possibility that more could choose a path that takes them through Libya and if you know anything about post-Gaddafi Libya, you know that traversing that territory is a textbook example of the phrase “out of the frying pan and into the fire” if you’re fleeing Syria.

Police aren’t turning away people who want to seek asylum in Sweden, but the border checks require migrants to register with authorities and make it harder to use Sweden as a transit country to get to Norway and Finland. Hungary later erected a fence on the Croatian border as well, and introduced stricter Schengen border procedures.

Belgrade/Sofia: Migrants coming through Bulgaria have faced beatings, threats and other abuses by police, a rights groups reported on Friday, though the country’s own refugee agency said it had received no such complaints.

It said the summit in Turkey – which is host to 2.2 million Syrian refugees – is a chance for G-20 countries to reverse what it said was their “shocking inaction”.

Mr Tusk said Europe now faced “a race against time” to save the Schengen arrangement – which the United Kingdom and Ireland are not part of – under which people can travel between 22 EU members and four other European states without border checks.

Croatia’s Interior Minister has demanded an urgent meeting of European Union interior ministers after Germany warned that it would start returning refugees to Croatia and Slovenia.

In Slovenia, meanwhile, tensions mounted after troops began erecting razor-wire along the Sutla River that divides the country from Croatia, and further southwest near the town of Gibina.

The EU Commission also announced that a summit with Turkey would be held before the end of the year, aimed at obtaining Ankara’s help to secure the bloc’s external borders and resolve the migration crisis.