EU watching migrant surge from Turkey to Greece and Bulgaria ‘with concern’
- Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have massed at Turkey’s border trying to enter EU member states
The EU is watching “with concern” the sudden migrant surge from Turkey to Greece and Bulgaria and stands ready to deploy its Frontex border guard agency to respond, Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Saturday.
She tweeted that “our top priority at this stage is to ensure that Greece and Bulgaria have our full support”.
Since Friday, thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have massed at Turkey’s border trying to enter EU member state Greece after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would no longer stop them.
Greek police have clashed repeatedly with the migrants to prevent them entering.
The development recalled the refugee crisis the EU struggled with five years ago when around a million asylum seekers, most of them from Syria, entered the bloc before a 2016 deal was struck with Turkey to restrict their flow.
Erdogan’s decision to “open the doors” followed air strikes in Syria on Thursday that killed dozens of Turkish troops there. The Turkish president has been trying since then to coax Nato allies – many of which are EU member states – to come to his assistance militarily.
