EU

EU home Affairs Ministers want Schengen to save

At their Meeting in Amsterdam looking for the EU home Affairs Ministers for solutions to the refugee crisis. More Controls? Ceilings? Or more pressure on Greece? The time is running out. Bernd Riegert from Amsterdam.

Reminder to the EU-Minister of internal Affairs: “Amnesty”-Flüchtlingsboot in front of the meeting venue in Amsterdam

The Netherlands at the Moment, in the presidency of the EU, are an ancient Seafaring. The European Ministers days in the Maritime Museum in the port of Amsterdam. By barge you will be in the morning from their Hotels to the conference venue geschippert. The Scenery fits the theme, because the Secretary of the interior to discuss a common EU coast guard, at some point the border between Turkey and Greece. Until June, will the Dutch presidency, a corresponding bill to submit.

Also, the human rights organization “Amnesty international” has become the Maritime conditions, and protested on Monday morning by ship. A boat, symbolically with dolls, the refugees pose, cluttered, crosses slowly in front of the freshly white-washed Tagesgebäude, a moated castle is similar. The “Amnesty”-the boat is in appropriate distance to a is twice as large Polizeischiff accompanied. At least in the port of Amsterdam works with the backup.

“Greece is required”

MIkl-Leitner: upper Austria

The Austrian interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner finds that Greece could do more to make its sea border, at the same time the EU external border, to foreclose. “It is a myth that the Greek-Turkish border is not secure,” said Mikl-Leitner at the pier. The Greeks had a huge Navy that use it, and an EU civilian command assume would have to. Even Greece! excite the Ressortchefin from Austria. “It is time for things to name. Greece is required to do everything, what it can do.”

Should the Greeks do not deliver, then it is to be displayed, they temporarily from the “Schengen zone” without border controls to throw out. The had Johanna Mikl-Leitner is already on the weekend in a Interview is required. It will also be in Amsterdam at the informal Meeting of EU Ministers of the interior could not depart. “If the external borders are not protected, then the limits further inward in the Schengen area.” It fits in with a proposal, to the Netherlands a long time ago had submitted: The establishment of a Mini-Schengen zone only with the Central European founding members of the area without internal border controls.

Protests at the land border between Greece and Turkey: refugees to pass through!

“Frontex must do more”

Of this, neither the EU Commission nor Greece or the German Minister of the interior so far to know something. Greek foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias pushed the Black Peter before the Meeting in Amsterdam to the rest of the EU member States and the joint border security Agency “Frontex”. The have, Kotzias, only 15 ships from the Greek Islands in the use that would be needed but 100 vessels to the coast to secure. Furthermore, Greece is no “war” against the refugees, but they had to of seeuntüchtigen boot save. More than 35000 refugees and migrants are in the first weeks of the year across the Mediterranean to Greece come.

De Mazière: border controls to be extended, if necessary

The German interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière, takes not so much Greece in the crosshairs, but rather the EU as a Whole. And remains diplomatic. “We need a permanent, noticeable, significant decrease in the Flüchtlingszahlen. And it is still visible in the next few weeks. The European measures, which we operate, are correct, but you come late”, warns Thomas de Maizière. Greece, one must evaluate. Maybe you should determine in may that the country its tasks in securing the external borders are not met. Then could the other States in the Schengen Zone their internal border controls, strengthen, and to at least two years to extend.

Border controls so long as it is necessary

He could not say how long the already introduced random checks at the borders to Austria must be pursued. The had the German interior Minister previously said. “And it stays that way too,” said de Maizière in Amsterdam. “The border controls have a function. The period is, so to speak, subordinated. We want that the things work, and then we also need a legal way, that is.” Currently run five Schengen States internal border controls by refugees and asylum seekers to collect, and occasionally even reject. Germany leaves the only people arriving in Germany to apply for asylum want. Who is the target Sweden or Denmark indicates, is returned. Austria and Slovenia, the procedure is similar.

Along the Balkan route there is great uncertainty, not only for the refugees and asylum seekers on the go. Even the politicians are confused, how the Flüchtlingslage develop in the coming weeks. Slovenia, for example, suggests that the EU border control Agency Frontex also in Macedonia to use the border to their own country of Greece to secure. In Amsterdam, should now be talked about, whether and how the law would be possible.

Everyday life on the Balkan route: refugees at the Macedonian-Serbian border

“Time is running out”

Insecurity also contributes to the upper limit for the Flüchtlingsaufnahme from Austria. All eyes are now on the German interior Minister Thomas de Maizière addressed, because Germany is the only country in the EU, refugees and asylum seekers, as before, in a large number of takes. In the questions of journalists after a possible German cap moans of the Minister on: “we’ve been a hundred times discussed. We work on European solutions. If this works, it is good, if not, you have to see.”

“Schengen is not yet in the game,” says EU-Commissioner for refugees Dimitris Avramopoulos, the further it urges that the EU member-States finally work to refugees after a long-agreed key to distribute. But to make almost all EU countries, not only Eastern European, little institutions. 331 of 160 000 provided people are so far from Greece and Italy have been distributed. The German Minister of the interior, the domestically powerful under pressure, because parts of the own party at home confidence in a European solution have lost, insists on his point of view: “It remains, we want Schengen. We want to have common European solutions, but the time is running out.” The Flüchtlingszahlen are at the Moment lower than a month ago. The couch but in the weather, not in a successful EU policy grants de Maiziere.