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Crise
migratoire : Athènes rappelle son ambassadrice à Vienne
Le Monde.fr avec AFP
| 25.02.2016 à 17h15 • Mis à jour le 25.02.2016 à 17h29
La crise migratoire
prend une tournure diplomatique. Athènes a rappelé son ambassadrice
à Vienne pour consultation, jeudi 25 février, sur fond de querelle
entre la Grèce et l’Autriche à propos de l’accueil des
migrants.
Athènes avait déjà
protesté mardi auprès de Vienne et de l’Union européenne (UE) en
raison du renforcement « unilatéral » des contrôles aux
frontières des pays des Balkans, ce qui a provoqué le blocage de
milliers de migrants sur le territoire grec.
« L’Autriche nous
traite comme des ennemis », avait lancé le ministre de
l’immigration grec, Yannis Mouzalas, lors d’une rencontre des
pays de l’UE à Bruxelles, qui visait à mettre fin aux désaccords
sur l’accueil de réfugiés. « La Grèce n’acceptera pas de
devenir le Liban de l’Europe », a fermement averti M. Mouzalas.
Les réfugiés syriens représentent désormais le quart de la
population du pays du Cèdre.
« Entrepôt d’êtres
humains »
Au poste d’Idomeni,
dernière ville grecque avant la Macédoine, au moins 3 500 migrants
attendent de pouvoir franchir la frontière, depuis que Skopje a
réduit le nombre de ceux autorisés à pénétrer sur son
territoire.
Lire notre
reportage : La Macédoine filtre les migrants venant de Grèce
A la suite d’une
décision prise par cinq pays de la « route des Balkans » —
Autriche, Macédoine, Croatie, Slovénie et Serbie —, le contrôle
a été renforcé côté macédonien et la police n’autorise depuis
dimanche que les Syriens et les Irakiens à passer, ce qui provoque
un embouteillage côté grec. Les autorités grecques ont été
contraintes de conduire une partie de ces migrants dans les camps
d’accueil de Diavata, dans le Nord, et de Schisto, près d’Athènes.
Jeudi, seules 100
personnes ont jusqu’à présent été autorisées à passer en
Macédoine, après 250 pour toute la journée de mercredi. Le premier
ministre grec, Alexis Tsipras, a menacé de dorénavant refuser tout
accord européen si le fardeau de la crise migratoire « n’est pas
partagé d’une manière proportionnelle » par les pays membres de
l’Union européenne.
Il a annoncé la
convocation de tous les chefs des partis grecs pour se mettre
d’accord sur la gestion de la crise migratoire avant le sommet du 7
mars à Bruxelles.
« Il faut le plus
large consensus politique sur cette question. Nous n’allons pas
accepter que notre pays se transforme en un entrepôt d’êtres
humains ».
De son côté,
l’Union européenne a exhorté mercredi les pays membres à
apporter à la crise migratoire des « résultats tangibles » dans
un délai maximum de « dix jours », au risque de voir « le système
complètement s’effondrer ».
Depuis le début de
l’année, plus de 102 000 migrants ont gagné la Grèce par la
Méditerranée, selon l’Organisation internationale pour les
migrations (OIM).
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EU
migration system ‘could break down in 10 days’
Commissioner
issues warning as EU tries to heal Vienna-Berlin split.
By JACOPO BARIGAZZI
2/25/16, 7:08 PM CET
The European Union
has until a March 7 summit with Turkey to curb the flow of refugees
into Europe or the bloc’s fragile migration strategy could
“completely break down,” the European commissioner for migration
warned Thursday.
At the summit, EU
leaders — who have spent several months arguing over how to deal
with the refugee crisis — will seek to push a strategy backed by
Germany and the European Commission to stem the flow of refugees to
Europe.
“In the next 10
days we need tangible and clear results on the ground otherwise there
is the risk the whole system will completely break down,” Dimitris
Avramopoulos told reporters after a meeting of EU interior ministers
in Brussels.
The ministers
grappled to repair deepening divisions over their approach to the
migration crisis, after a splinter-group move by Austria to seal
borders triggered a chain reaction along the Western Balkan route,
leaving thousands of refugees stranded in Greece.
Political tensions
surrounding the issue escalated Thursday afternoon when Greece
recalled its ambassador in Vienna and issued a sharply worded
statement decrying actions “that have their roots in the 19th
century.”
“It is highly
important that we stick together in Europe,” Thomas de Maizière.
Although
Avramopoulos, who is Greek, tried to play down the diplomatic row,
saying “the ambassador was called back for consultation, they
didn’t break the relationship,” there were heated exchanges
between the Greeks and Austrians in the meeting.
“The Austrian
minister had quite a intense clash with her Greek counterpart,”
said a source who was inside the room.
Vienna confirmed the
row but held its ground. Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told
reporters she spoke to her Greek counterpart, Ioannis Mouzalas, and
told him Austria had no reason to believe that the EU’s external
border in Greece is properly protected.
“If Greece … is
not able to secure the EU’s external borders, we have to ask if the
Schengen border can still be there,” she said.
Mouzalas also came
in for criticism from Eastern European countries for what they called
a failure by Athens to deal with the refugee flow. But Germany
defended Athens, diplomats said.
Mouzalas told
journalists before the meeting that Greece did not want “to become
the Lebanon of Europe” — the Mediterranean country of 4.5 million
inhabitants that is hosting about 1.5 million Syrian refugees.
“There were
controversial debates over the action of some European states and
neighbor countries, particularly the Western Balkan states, which
thought it is right to implement individual measures,” Germany’s
Thomas de Maizière told reporters at the end of the summit.
Austrian breakaway
The day before,
Austria and several other countries, including non-EU members, agreed
on their own steps to halt the migrant flow, imposing tougher
restrictions on which refugees would be allowed to enter and stricter
rules on who could stay. The meeting, which produced a Vienna
Declaration calling for the migrant flow along the Western Balkans
route to be “substantially reduced,” was held despite calls from
European leaders over the past week to keep in line with a broader
strategy.
The ministers’
summit in Brussels was aimed at trying restore a coordinated effort.
Before it started, de Maizière called such independent national
actions “a bad choice,” and implored his EU counterparts to work
together on a common effort to protect external borders.
“Right
now the unity of the Union and human lives are at stake,” Dimitris
Avramopoulos.
“It is highly
important that we stick together in Europe,” de Maizière told
reporters before the ministerial meeting. “If national initiatives
gain the upper hand, all will suffer damage. We see alternative
routes that will be used instead. And that’s why Germany will do
everything to make the protection of the external border between
Turkey and Greece a success, and if not, that we undertake common
measures.”
New tensions also
emerged on other borders. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve
said before the meeting that Paris had not been informed of Belgium’s
decision to reinstate border controls at its frontier with France.
Belgium justified
the decision because Paris is moving forward on a plan to evacuate
the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp that houses around 4,000
migrants and Brussels is afraid this could create massive migration
towards Belgium. Cazeneuve denied the intention to send bulldozers to
the camp and reassured that it will be evacuated in an orderly manner
without creating a flow towards Belgium.
“Lonely
initiatives do not lead anywhere,” he said. “Right now the unity
of the Union and human lives are at stake.”
However, next
month’s EU-Turkey summit might not produce the results Avramopoulos
seeks. It remains unclear if Turkey will deliver on the action plan
it agreed with the Commission last October. The agreement demands
Turkey stops refugees from taking off from its shores to reach
Greece.
“There are
indications that not only the weather influences the numbers [of
refugees crossing the Aegean Sea] but also the actions of the
traffickers and (efforts on) the Turkish side,” de Maizière said
at the end of the meeting.
The president of the
European Council, Donald Tusk, is planning a visit to Ankara along
with the Commission’s first vice president, Frans Timmermans,
before the March 7 summit, said a diplomat, but the date has not yet
been agreed.
“That is a very
crucial date to see to what extent we succeed in lowering the influx
towards Europe as a whole or we have to take other measures to deal
with the influx,” said Klaas Dijkhoff, interior minister of the
Netherlands, which currently holds the EU’s rotating Council
presidency.
‘Warehouse of
souls’
Greece had already
raised serious concerns about the Vienna decision. Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras said Wednesday in parliament that he will not allow
his country to become a “warehouse of souls” and threatened to
block future EU agreements on the refugee crisis if member states do
not share the burden.
Vienna last week
announced it would cap the number of asylum claims it would process
every day and that it would allow no more than 3,200 migrants to
transit the country per day. The Commission branded the decision
illegal in a scolding letter to Vienna, but Austria went ahead with
its plans. After the issue bogged down summit discussion last week,
the country continued to push the issue by convening the meeting in
Vienna Wednesday.
However,
Avramopolous ruled out the Commission forcing Vienna to respect EU
rules using so-called infringement procedures. “Nobody has ever
talked about it,” he said.
Ministers also
voiced concerns about Hungary’s decision Wednesday to call a
referendum on the EU’s mandatory quota system for relocating
refugees.
Austria has refused
to budge. “I made clear that Austria will not move away from the
decision of its government, that we will keep our limit of 37,500,”
Mikl-Leitner told reporters.
Other countries also
took matters into their own hands. Earlier this week, Slovenia said
it would beef up controls on its border with Croatia as Serbia and
Macedonia were both looking at curbing the flow of refugees from
Greece.
To ease tensions
ahead of the summit, some EU ministers held a working breakfast
Thursday with their colleagues from several countries, including
Serbia and Macedonia. During the week ambassadors from the Balkan
countries met with the EU’s Dutch presidency to try to coordinate
action, said a diplomat.
“It’s a
situation that can develop very rapidly, the important thing is that
other countries are not caught by surprise,” the diplomat said.
Ministers also
voiced concerns about Hungary’s decision Wednesday to call a
referendum on the EU’s mandatory quota system for relocating
refugees. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused the EU of an “abuse
of power.”
“If we generalize
the use of referenda, we are in a way creating the basis for unmaking
the European Union,” Spain’s minister of home affairs, Jorge
Fernández Díaz, told reporters.
Barbara Surk and
Hans von der Burchard contributed to this article.
A
UE tem dez dias para se entender sobre os refugiados, senão tudo
pode ruir
CLARA BARATA
25/02/2016 - PÚBLICO
Iniciativas
unilaterais para fechar fronteiras põem Europa em risco, diz
comissário europeu. Joga-se o tudo ou nada na cimeira de 7 de Março.
A Comissão Europeia
deu um puxão de orelhas colectivo aos países-membros que nos
últimos dias parecem ter entrado num concurso para ver qual
conseguia fechar fronteiras mais depressa para os refugiados,
deixando-os a acumular na Grécia. “Nos próximos dez dias, temos
de ver resultados claros e palpáveis. Se não, todo o sistema pode
ruir”, avisou o comissário da Imigração, Dimitris Avramopoulos,
após um conselho dos ministros da Justiça e do Interior da UE, em
Bruxelas.
“Temos a
responsabilidade de nos esforçar para aplicarmos as soluções que
foram aprovadas ao nível da União Europeia. Não há tempo para
acções não coordenadas”, afirmou Avramopoulos, numa clara
crítica à iniciativa austríaca, combinada com nove países dos
Balcãs, para encerrar as fronteiras da Rota dos Balcãs e limitar de
forma drástica a passagem de refugiados, que foi já aplicada no
terreno desde a semana passada e que a ministra Johanna Mikl-Leitner
foi defender a Bruxelas nesta quinta-feira.
As movimentações
austríacas ofenderam Atenas – que não foi convidada para a
reunião em que foi combinada esta acção, num claro sinal de que se
pretendia deixar os refugiados acumulados junto à fronteira da
Grécia com a Macedónia, como já está a acontecer. Tanto assim foi
que o Governo grego chamou de volta a Atenas a sua embaixadora em
Viena, “para consultas”, depois de ter classificado o gesto como
“pouco amistoso”. “A Áustria trata-nos como inimigos”,
afirmou em Bruxelas Yannis Mouzalas, o ministro-adjunto para a
Imigração, segundo uma fonte diplomática citada pela AFP.
3,6
milhões de
refugiados é quanto a Alemanha poderá receber até 2020 - segundo
estimativas internas do Governo, que no entanto não se baseiam numa
análise aprofundada, mas apenas em aceitar que podem chegar 500 mil
todos os anos,
O comunicado do
comissário europeu da Imigração reforçou a posição grega,
remetendo para a necessidade de encontrar pontos comuns para que o
diálogo seja possível na cimeira de 7 de Março. “Estão em jogo
vidas humanas e a unidade da EU”, insistiu Avramopoulos.
“A Grécia não
aceitará tornar-se o Líbano da Europa, um armazém de almas, mesmo
que haja dinheiro da UE para isso”, declarou Mouzalas. No Líbano,
os refugiados sírios representam um quarto da sua população de
quatro milhões de habitantes.
O comissário
europeu recordou aquilo em que os países têm de se focar, em vez de
encerrarem fronteiras: o acordo com a Turquia, para melhorar as
condições de vida dos cerca de 2,5 milhões de refugiados da guerra
na Síria que o país já acolheu, tentando mantê-los lá, bem como
o acordo com a NATO para “lutar contra o tráfico de imigrantes no
mar Egeu”, afirmou Avramopoulos. E na criação de uma guarda de
fronteira e costeira europeia que, sublinhou, a actual presidência
holandesa da UE está empenhada em conseguir lançar até ao fim de
Junho.
A questão dos
refugiados tornou-se uma questão ainda mais fracturante do que as da
dívida, que opôs países do Norte e do Sul, se é que é possível
imaginar isso. O primeiro-ministro grego, Alexis Tsipras, ameaçou
não aprovar mais nenhum acordo no Conselho Europeu se o fardo da
crise migratória não for repartido “de uma forma proporcional
entre os membros da UE”. Fê-lo confrontado com o que parece ser a
vontade de alguns países – o grupo de Visegrado (Hungria, Polónia,
República Checa e Eslováquia) e o grupo de países balcânicos
reunido pela Áustria, nem todos da União Europeia (Albânia,
Bósnia-Herzegovina, Bulgária, Croácia, Eslovénia, Kosovo,
Macedónia, Montenegro, Sérvia) – de criar uma espécie de muralha
interior da UE, que deixaria a Grécia de fora.
Novas leis na
Alemanha
As divisões
agudizam-se. Na Alemanha, o país que recebeu 1,1 milhões de
refugiados em 2015 e mais 100 mil desde o início deste ano, e onde a
chanceler Angela Merkel está sob forte pressão política por causa
da sua política de portas abertas, o Parlamento aprovou esta
quinta-feira uma série de medidas restritivas da legislação de
asilo, como um impedimento de dois anos nas reuniões familiares para
alguns refugiados, que também afectarão menores não acompanhados.
Foi também aprovada uma lei que facilitará a deportação de
estrangeiros que cometam crimes – concebida depois dos roubos e
ataques de cariz sexual na noite de Ano Novo em Colónia e outras
cidades alemães.
A marcar o dia, um
jornal divulgou estimativas internas do Governo sobre quantos
refugiados podem chegar à Alemanha nos próximos anos, que podem ser
3,6 milhões até 2020. “Não são números oficiais nem podem ser
encarados como uma previsão”, afirmou Peter Altmaier, chefe de
gabinete de Merkel, citado pela Reuters. Há muitas incertezas, como
o decorrer da guerra na Síria e a forma como funcionará o acordo
coma Turquia, sublinhou.
Mas fontes
governamentais disseram à agência que se está a trabalhar com um
cálculo de 500 mil refugiados por ano de 2016 a 2020, por isso é
razoável que em 2020 a Alemanha tenha recebido 3,6 milhões, numa
estimativa “meramente técnica”, diz a Reuters.
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