Refugees

Tusk route on a difficult Mission along the Balkan

In the refugee crisis in the special summit on 7 threatens the EU. March was a fiasco. Literally at the last minute by EU Council President Tusk goes on the Offensive. With flash to visit along the Balkan route he’s looking for a compromise.

Seven heads of state and government in four days. With this travel marathon, which begins in Austria and in Greece, wants to President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, to fix the seemingly impossible: a compromise line in the refugee crisis along the so-called Balkan route.

The ditches within the European Union in a dispute over refugee policy to cracks in the past few days, ever deeper. To Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia announced on Friday, to a maximum of 580 refugees a day to enter. Due to the pressure from the Northern countries, Macedonia sealed off its border with Greece to a large extent. There, tens of thousands of refugees are stuck now.

Austria holds on to lockdown

Immediately prior to the talks, Tusk’s in Vienna, the Austrian Minister of defence, Hans Peter Doskozil (SPÖ) Germany and the EU was partially to blame for the situation at the Greek-Macedonian border. The refugee chaos reveal the helplessness of the EU Commission, said Doskozil.

He made it clear at the same time, Austria would stick to its national measures. The SPÖ-politicians are not attributed to their own information, so that it is rapidly a common European solution.

Macedonian soldiers secure the tanks to the border with Greece at Idomeni

Desperate to Advertise for Schengen

The former Polish head of government, does not want to advertise in the Tour through the main cities for the last EU summit demanded a return to the Schengen System, with a functioning management of the external borders-what works in Greece since months. And Turkey by the Europeans, under the leadership of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a “key partner” identified, too little to stop the arrival of Refugees on the Eastern Aegean towards Greece.

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According to the most recent Statements from Vienna, the question of whether Tusk can have with his promotional tour a success. Judy Dempsey from the Institute of Carnegie Europe in Brussels, declared that Tusk will embark on his visit to the Balkans late into the “limelight”. Austria, held in the last week, with nine Balkan countries in a summit that, ultimately, the closure of the Border in Macedonia, prepared, had shown the “weakness” of Brussels, but the President of the Council in Particular. And also, before that, Tusk in the refugee question “itself had not been behind the Scenes seems to be particularly active.”

So far, the former Polish head of government in the refugee crisis has emphasized more the need for border security. Last year he pleaded for the “fair distribution” of “at least 100,000 refugees”, but of “political coercion”, as the EU Minister of the interior, the project had several of their Eastern European colleagues overruled.

Little hope of success

To make matters worse, the liberal-conservative Tusk is weakened by the change of government in Poland in addition, the Europe expert at the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Joachim Fritz-Vannahme, makes it clear. The new national-conservative government in Warsaw see it, the 58-Year-old is “a kind of enemy of the state”.

To signal much more than a willingness to talk, not, could, Tusk speculates on his Balkan Trip, probably Fritz-Vannahme. But it is maybe even an advantage. So the President of the EU can explore according to Fritz-Vannahme, where the red lines are and “where’s the orange, you can maybe even stretch”.

se/rb (afp, dpa, rtr)