Europe’s countries won’t wait for EU migration plan

Austria said reducing the flow of migrants is a “question of survival” for the European Union (EU) on Wednesday, following a meeting of ten countries on the Balkan migration route in Vienna. Despite concerns over breaches of international norms, the meeting has warned countries will coordinate national borders without waiting for Europe, showing growing determination to bypass the EU altogether.

People trying to cross Europe wait at the Spielfeld checkpoint on the border of Austria and Slovenia. Reuters/Leonhard Foeger

“We have to reduce the influx now. This is a question of survival for the EU,” Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said after talks with interior and foreign ministers of nine other countries along the Balkan migration route from Greece to Central Europe.

The meeting comes after the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday more than 110,000 people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have arrived in Europe since the beginning of the year, following more than one million in 2015. The vast majority entered via Greece.

Elizabeth Collett, Migration Policy Institute Europe

With European officials struggling to coordinate a response among sceptical member states and no sign the arrivals will abate anytime soon, Austria has been calling for a “Plan B” to manage migration flows since it stepped up ID checks at its borders in early January.

“We want to generate pressure so that the EU can reach a solution,” Mikl-Leitner said after the Vienna meeting. “A partnership with Balkan countries is not only in the interest of these countries but also of the EU. We want to generate pressure and urgency.”

But the meeting itself suggests the countries present are not prepared to wait for an EU response before taking unilateral action on their border and refugee policies.

Austria has come under criticism for organising the talks – notably from Greece, which was not invited and complained it would bear the brunt of decisions made there – as well as for its decision last week to let only 3200 people into the country per day, of whom only 80 can apply for asylum.

Restrictive measures among other countries present at the Vienna meeting, including similar caps in neighbouring Slovenia and allowing passage to migrants based on their country of origin in Macedonia, have raised concerns of international norms and conventions.

“The 1951 Refugee Convention guarantees all people the right to seek asylum,” says Karin de Gruijl of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. “We now see that people are being stopped at the borders because of their nationalities, and not their protection needs, which of course is a problem, because that means they don’t have access to the asylum system.”

The Commission has warned such restrictions could also lead to a humanitarian crisis in Greece, where thousands of people are blocked at the border with Macedonia.

Austria has told European officials the country would not back down on the limits, however, and the Vienna meeting reveals a growing consensus among EU members and non-members alike to act on their own, without coordinating with the European Commission or other institutions.

“Up until now, flows along the western Balkans have been coordinated through Commission-led meetings, which bring together the key operational officials from the Western Balkan states, from Austria, from Greece, along with other interested parties,” says Elizabeth Collett, director of the Migration Policy Institute’s Europe office in Brussels.

“This meeting suggest that these states no longer want to participate in that broader conversation and want to do their own coordination,” she says. “I think you can sense an increasing concern [among EU officials] that the unilateral actions we’ve seen increasing in frequency in the past couple months are now leading to a point where the European Union is not seen as a source of a solution.”

Austria has responded to critics in Europe saying they will have the chance to address their concerns at a meeting of European justice and interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday.