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Europe’s refugee crisis
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A Hungarian policeman closes the gate of the Horgos-Roszke border crossing with Serbia on Monday. Photo: EPA

New frontiers: More European nations impose border controls, following German lead

Hungary closed the main migrant crossing with Serbia and more states imposed border checks as the failure of EU ministers to agree how to share the burden of a flood of refugees deepened the crisis.

With Europe’s 20-year-old Schengen passport-free zone creaking under the pressure, Austria and Slovakia said Monday they would follow economic powerhouse Germany’s lead in reinstating border controls to deal with the flow of people.

Poland said it was considering similar steps while the Netherlands said it would have “more patrols” on its frontiers.

Long traffic jams built up on the Germany-Austria border and refugees were left stranded on non-EU Serbia’s side of the frontier with Hungary in the latest chaotic scenes from the biggest such crisis since World War II.

Yet amid opposition from eastern states, EU ministers failed to reach agreement on a plan to share out 120,000 refugees and ease the burden on frontline states from the tide of people fleeing war zones like Syria and Afghanistan.

“We did not have the agreement we wanted,” EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said after an emergency meeting in Brussels, adding that they hoped to reach a deal in October.

But the crisis is moving faster than the EU can handle it, with more than 430,000 people having crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, 2,748 dying, and more coming every day.

A day before Hungary has vowed to begin arresting illegal migrants, police fenced off a gap in the razor-wire barrier with Serbia that hardline Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government is racing to complete.

At the Roszke border crossing, several dozen migrants including many children, some in pushchairs, were stuck on the Serbian side of the border, with several women crying, after police shut the border.

“We had heard the Hungarians were closing their border, but they told us it would be Tuesday,” cried Hassan, a Syrian in his thirties who is trying to reach Sweden.

The migrants were redirected to the official crossing around two kilometres away, from where they were being taken on buses to Roszke train station, officials said.

Hungary is on the frontline of Europe’s migrant crisis, with almost 200,000 people travelling up from Greece through the western Balkans and entering the country this year, most of them seeking to travel on to economic powerhouse Germany.

But other countries are now feeling the strain too, and Germany shocked its EU partners on Sunday when it admitted that it had to reinstate border controls eliminated under Schengen in the late 1990s to cope with the influx.

Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said there were “many signs that Germany this year will take in not 800,000 refugees, as forecast by the interior ministry, but one million.”

Austria and Slovakia pounced on the U-turn by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government - which had previously said it would throw open its doors to Syrian refugees - to reinstate their own border checks.

“We will proceed as Germany did,” Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said in Brussels.

Poland said it will impose border controls at the first sign of “any threat” while Netherland promised “more” patrols.

EU states can impose temporary controls for security reasons under the Schengen treaty but there are fears the very ideal of a borderless Europe could collapse.

 

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