Greece Resists Its Role as European Union’s Gatekeeper

By LIZ ALDERMANJAN. 30, 2016

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — On a recent weekday, 40 buses jammed into the parking lot of a gas station near the Macedonian border, carrying thousands of refugees who had survived a perilous crossing on wintry seas from Turkey.

Now they were approaching ground zero in the intensifying debate over how to curb the unceasing stream of men, women and children from war-ravaged and poor nations in the Middle East and Africa heading to the safety and prosperity of Europe.

After trying and largely failing to persuade Turkey to stem the flow, Europe has reached a critical point in the migrant crisis. With few options left, short of halting the war in Syria, much of the Continent is coalescing around proposals that would harden the border with Macedonia and effectively turn Greece into a giant processing center for migrants.

At the border crossing here — one of the busiest gateways for migrants on the path north and the site of occasional violence between the authorities and frustrated migrants — Greece has played that filtering role to some degree for months. In theory, Greece is allowing only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans to continue toward their preferred destinations in Germany and Austria.

The rest — from places like Iran, Morocco, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia and Congo — are supposed to be sent to camps in Athens, where they can be deported or apply for asylum in Greece, whose economic troubles would make it an unattractive new home to most migrants even if they were accepted.

But other European nations say Greece is not doing enough to enforce the border, and with the number of refugees expected to surge again as the weather improves, the pressure for a new approach is escalating rapidly.

Exasperated with what they claim is a Greek policy of waving people through to the rest of Europe, officials in the European Union are talking about temporarily expelling Greece from the bloc’s passport-free travel zone, known as the Schengen area.

The European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, endorsed a separate idea to send the police from member states to Macedonia, which is not part of the European Union, to buffer its side of the border with Greece. One Belgian minister even called for refugee camps to hold 300,000 to be built in Greece.

Greek officials have reacted angrily to the proposals. They say the plans would not deter migrants from heading to Europe in the first place and would stigmatize Greece — already under heavy European Union oversight as it relies on international bailout funds — for a crisis created elsewhere in Europe.

“The climate has changed from the welcoming politics of Merkel to one of fear and panic,” said Nikos Xydakis, Greece’s foreign minister for European affairs, referring to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision last summer to open Germany’s doors to refugees. “If they want to raise a new Iron Curtain, we will not be the ones to blame.”

Here along the border with Macedonia, anxiety among the migrants is high. But having come this far, few of them seem to think any policy change will keep people from fleeing war, repression and poverty to seek a better life in Europe.

“I pray to my god that they don’t close the borders,” said Mohamed Salem Ibrahim, a teenager who fled Afghanistan to make the long trek to Germany.

“We have no other future but Europe,” he added, his eyes alighting on the single bag of belongings he had stowed on a bus. “We must get in one way or another.”

If border controls are imposed on Greece, Mr. Xydakis said, “the flow will stop at the Greek sea, because people won’t want to be trapped in a black box in Greece. But migrants will just find other ways to get into Europe, even if they have to go through the Arctic Circle.”

The European Union this week proposed allowing countries to suspend the Schengen agreement for up to two years, a move that could push the open-border policy toward collapse and damage economies when the bloc needs more resources to deal with the migrants. Several member countries, including Germany, Sweden, Hungary and Austria, have already temporarily reinstated border checks.

European officials accuse Greece of creating a “domino” of tightened borders along the path to Germany.

In Macedonia, officials say if Greece does not adequately distinguish refugees from migrants who have no claim to asylum, many could get stuck in Macedonia if Serbia, its northern neighbor, rejects them.

“Then we will be the place where tents will be installed, and we’d become a huge refugee camp under open skies,” said Nikola Poposki, Macedonia’s foreign affairs minister. “We will do everything necessary to avoid that.”

Here in Idomeni, at the official migrant camp abutting the checkpoint between Greece and Macedonia, Greek officers scrutinized the papers of hundreds of bedraggled refugees as they waited to cross an opening in a new 12.5-mile razor-wire fence separating the two countries.

A 23-year-old Libyan woman who gave her name only as a Fatimah said she and her husband had just been refused passage at the border because their nationality was not one of the three designated for refugee status.

“Libya is hell, it’s dangerous, too, and yet we cannot get approval to get to Germany,” she said, as tears filled her eyes. One month pregnant and wearing a pink knit cap, Fatimah spoke in French and English and said they had no money for the bus fare to Athens, where they would have to wait for months with thousands of unaccepted migrants at a huge makeshift camp in a former Olympic center until their future was sorted out.

“Still,” she said, looking at the bright blue sky, “we’ll make it somehow to Athens, and then we’ll apply for asylum in Greece and try to get jobs.”

Although the migrant flow slowed in the winter, the numbers are higher than ever for this time of year. In January alone more than 45,000 migrants arrived at Greek islands from Turkey, a 20-fold increase from a year ago, despite a pledge of 3 billion euros, or $3.25 billion, from the European Union to Turkey in return for efforts to reduce the migrant flow.

Greek officials say they have already improved some tasks, like fingerprinting arrivals, stepping up sea patrols and upgrading registration facilities for migrants on the Greek islands.

In the meantime, the situation in Idomeni is but a taste of what Greece could look like if Europe decides to suspend Greece from the Schengen area or seal the border with Macedonia.

When Macedonia shut the border with no warning for a day last week, migrants piled behind the razor wire fence and a Pakistani man was fatally stabbed amid the chaos. In November, hundreds of migrants on the Greek side attacked the Macedonian police with stones amid fears that they might not be allowed to pass.

Over the past few days, the official camp has become more orderly, with aid groups running shelters and handing out food and clothing. Still, an overflow of refugees was stuck about 12 miles away at the Eko gas station, a waiting room for those hoping to continue north.

In the parking lot, buses lined up side by side, casting slanted shadows on the asphalt. Women in head scarves sprawled, exhausted, on thick gray blankets flung on a strip of grass next to the highway, as children kicked plastic bottles on a small service road. Groups of men warmed their hands over fires built in oil drums, while families washed clothes and hung them to dry on a chain-link fence.

Inside white tents set up by Doctors Without Borders, travelers took breaks from the biting cold until their bus was called to leave for the border station, often with little warning.

One bus, emblazoned with the words “Success Travel,” suddenly revved up as the driver blasted the horn. Scores of people ran out of the tents. Many had to scramble aboard as the bus began to pull away.

“We are happy to have made it to Greece, but we want to move on,” said Najib Nasrati, 15, an Afghan whose family hoped to reach Germany.

Earlier in the day, he had heard a rumor that Germany might completely shut its borders in six months.

“I felt angry when I heard that,” he said. “We are all in a very bad situation. If we have to stay in Greece or be sent back, it will be chaos.”

Dimitris Bounias contributed reporting.