Tensions have flared at border with Macedonia as a result of border restrictions in the Balkans and Austria
The Wall Street Journal
By VALENTINA POP
Updated March 2, 2016 11:58 a.m. ET
5 COMMENTS
BRUSSELS—The European Commission proposed the creation of a €700-million ($760 million) humanitarian assistance program, mostly to accommodate tens of thousands of migrants stuck in Greece as the main route into Europe becomes increasingly cut off.
The program, announced Wednesday, would follow a model so far used only in conflict zones, with the commission providing the funding to the United Nations’ refugee agency and other groups, which would then carry out aid efforts including setting up emergency tents and handing out aid.
Tensions have flared over the past few days at Greece’s border with Macedonia as a result of border restrictions put in place by Austria and Balkan countries last month.
Asked about the situation at the Greek-Macedonian border, where now thousands of migrants have become stranded because of the border controls, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said he was very worried.
“It was foreseeable that this would lead to a huge humanitarian crisis in Greece,” he said in a news conference in Brussels. He added that the commission adopted the humanitarian aid plan precisely to help Greece cope with the crisis there and urged EU governments to speed up the relocation program.
The EU’s humanitarian aid commissioner Christos Stylianides said €300 million would be made immediately available to fund basic needs for refugees—such as food, tents and clean water. The remaining €400 million would be spread out over the coming two years. EU governments and the European Parliament are still required to approve the budgetary changes needed for the overall program.
“Obviously, this emergency support on its own cannot and will not solve our problems. There are no magic formulas,” Mr. Stylianides said.
Though modeled on other humanitarian programs outside the EU, the new program won’t divert funds from ongoing operations in conflict zones around the globe.
Until now, the EU has mostly organized assistance for Greece from the bloc’s member states.
Greece last week sent an assessment to the commission estimating that it immediately needed €483 million to accommodate migrants and refugees. The sum includes personnel costs, medicines, tents, blankets and technical assistance for around 100,000 migrants estimated to get stuck in Greece in the coming weeks, government spokesperson Olga Gerovasili said Tuesday.
She said that even if Greece got the aid, the problem wouldn’t be solved. “This does not mean it is easily manageable, and you understand that we could not bear the strain [of all refugees getting stuck in Greece],” Ms. Gerovasili said.
“These are temporary measures; there needs to be a permanent solution on where the refugees will be relocated, on how much burden each country will have to carry and not just in financial terms, but also how many refugees each will host,” she said.
The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees last month launched a separate appeal for $550 million needed to fund humanitarian operations in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, half of which should go to Greece. William Spindler, a spokesman for the refugee agency said it had received $109.5 million as of the end of February.
The humanitarian aid program marks a shift from last year’s focus on the redistribution of migrants, an EU program that so far has managed to move just 500 of the 160,000 asylum seekers that were to be relocated across the bloc.
Another EU policy—a €3-billion deal with Turkey to reduce the number of migrants leaving its shores for Greece—so far has also had modest results. On average, 2,000 migrants arrived every day in Greece in February, according to the UNHCR.
EU leaders are set to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at a Monday summit in Brussels to pressure him to get the numbers as close to zero as possible and to accept more people being returned from Greece.
A commission spokesman on Wednesday said 308 migrants from North African countries would be returned to Turkey from Greece in the coming days.
According to the U.N.’s refugee agency, more than 120,000 people made their way into the EU via Turkey and Greece in the first two months of this year.
Aid organizations and the leaders of Germany and Greece have strongly criticized the moves to restrict borders rather than wait for the Turkey to deal to work. But other officials and EU leaders are convinced that the crisis could have a deterrent effect for other migrants tempted to come to Europe.
Speaking in Zagreb on Wednesday, European Council President Donald Tusk defended the policy of stopping the migrants in Greece. He noted that EU leaders last month agreed to restore the rules of the border-free Schengen area whereby migrants could be denied entry if they hadn’t filed for asylum in the first EU country they set foot on, meaning Greece.
“We have to avoid an illusion that instead of the full respect for Schengen rules, there might be another, easy and convenient European solution,” he said. “Respecting the Schengen rules will not solve the migration crisis. But without it we have no chance whatsoever to resolve it.”
—Nektaria Stamouli in Athens contributed to this article.
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