Leaders at Western Balkans conference agree to reduce migration

The Greek prime minister’s comments came as Austria and nine other countries met for a West Balkan conference on Wednesday, after individually deciding to restrict the flow of refugees into their countries.

Austria warned Wednesday that the EU’s future was at stake as it pressed Balkan states, in the absence of an effective common response by the bloc, to reduce the influx of migrants despite fears of a humanitarian crisis. That creates a bottleneck of refugees that is hurting nations further south, including European Union member Greece, the first point of landing for most of the migrants arriving by boat from Turkey. The International Organization for Migration said more than 102,500…

The EU has set up a scheme to share 160,000 migrants arriving in Greece and Italy.

Austria, defying criticism from Greek and United Nations refugee officials, took further steps on Wednesday to coordinate border restrictions spanning the Balkans that are intensifying a logjam of migrants in Greece.

Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s Foreign Minister: “I am gladly underlining it here: there was not a single attendant today at our meeting who was against a European solution”.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Wednesday that from now on Greece “will not assent to agreements” unless all its partners are forced to participate proportionately in the relocation and resettlement of refugees.

Greece filed a rare diplomatic protest with Austria for excluding it from Wednesday’s meeting of foreign and interior ministers in Vienna, held a day before an European Union interior ministers’ gathering in Brussels. Instead, he said, they “are only interested in transporting the refugees as fast as possible to central Europe”.

As a result of the lack of the EU’s failures, countries throughout the western Balkans have begun unilaterally to impose restrictions, sparked by Austria’s much-criticised daily migrant limits.

Austria says it is overwhelmed by the number of arrivals.

The practices have already resulted in a build-up of refugees and asylum-seekers and migrants in Greece and in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where almost 700 people, mostly Afghan nationals, have been barred from accessing admission into Serbia. “[Germany] should decide on one strategy”, Mikl-Leitner said.

Elena Becatoros, Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and AP video journalist Philipp Jenne in Vienna contributed.