A family warms themselves around a fire as hundreds of migrants wait to enter a camp in Spielfeld, Austria
European and Balkan leaders agreed on measures early yesterday to slow the movement of tens of thousands whose flight from war and poverty has overwhelmed border guards and reception centers and heightened tension among nations along the route to the European Union’s heartland.
In a statement to paper over deep divisions about how to handle the crisis, the leaders committed to bolster the borders of Greece as it struggles to cope with the wave of refugees from Syria and beyond that cross over through Turkey.
The leaders decided that reception capacities should be boosted in Greece and along the Balkans migration route to shelter 100,000 more people as winter looms.
They also agreed to expand border operations and make full use of biometric data like fingerprints as they register and screen migrants, before deciding whether to grant them asylum or send them home.
“The immediate imperative is to provide shelter,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said after chairing the mini-summit of 11 regional leaders in Brussels. “It cannot be that in the Europe of 2015 people are left to fend for themselves, sleeping in fields.”
Nearly 250,000 people have passed through the Balkans on their way to Western Europe since mid-September.
The surge of migrants across the Balkans is continuing unabated and Croatia’s police said yesterday morning more than 13,000 migrants arrived from Serbia in the past 24 hours. About 260,000 passed through Croatia since mid-September when Hungary put up a fence on the border with Serbia, diverting the flow.
Slovenia’s police said yesterday nearly 10,000 migrants entered Slovenia from Croatia in the same period, bringing the total number of arrivals in the past 12 days to almost 75,000.
Many are headed northwest to Austria, Germany and Scandinavia where they hope to find a home.
“This is one of the greatest litmus tests that Europe has ever faced,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the summit. “Europe has to demonstrate that it is a continent of values and of solidarity.”
“We will need to take further steps in order to get through this,” she said. AP
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