The Newest: Red Cross: Refugee inflow overwhelms authorities

Under proposed legislation, a three-year asylum term may be prolonged after an investigation can prove the likelihood of persecution or violence in their home country. If their countries of origin are then deemed to have become safe, they will be sent back.

Austria’s new law would force most Afghans to wait for three years, rather than one year under current rules, to bring their families to Austria as well as to prove they have an independent source of income, health insurance and a flat.

Rights groups severely criticized the bill, saying it would pose a great problem for asylum seekers on their way to integrating into the Austrian society.

The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said tightening rules on relatives coming to Austria “could keep families apart for many years, if not for ever”.

In a bid to ease their burden, the EU on Wednesday will start relocating refugees from Greece to other member states in a ceremony that will be attended by the EU’s commissioner for immigration and European Parliament president Martin Schulz.

More than 100,000 people were killed and up to four million were displaced during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia during the 1990s, the last migrant crisis to shake Europe.

They include 66,000 for whom Greece was the first port of call.

The small Alpine country is the first west European country that hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and beyond reach on their trek westward, and a major conduit for those moving on toward Germany and northern Europe.

But Erdogan and other officials have since dampened expectations, in a further sign of the troubled relationship between Ankara and Brussels.