Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said on Sunday that the EU cannot allow Greece, a country bailed out from its huge debt crisis, to plunge into “chaos” by shutting European borders to refugees.
“Do you seriously believe that all the euro states that last year fought all the way to keep Greece in the eurozone – and we were the strictest – can one year later allow Greece to, in a way, plunge into chaos?” she said in a TV interview.
Mrs Merkel criticised the move by Austria and several Balkan countries to introduce border controls or cap daily migrant arrivals, creating a bottleneck in Greece as refugee boats continue to arrive from Turkey.
“What has happened is exactly what we feared, that a country is now left alone with its problems, and we can’t allow that,” the German leader said in a lengthy interview on the migrant crisis with public broadcaster ARD.
Mrs Merkel – who had long sparred with Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, demanding strict austerity in return for billions in EU-IMF bailouts – said she was now in close contact with the leftist leader on the refugee influx.
Anger has been building in Greece, the European gateway for hundreds of thousands of migrants, after Vienna introduced a daily cap on asylum applications and four Balkan countries, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, tightened entry conditions.
Germany last year took in more than one million asylum seekers, more than half from war-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving Mrs Merkel exposed to rising criticism at home as well as from many EU partners.
Mrs Merkel insisted that the refugee influx be reduced through tightening EU external borders, involving Nato ships in a surveillance mission to stop refugee boats from Turkey, and an EU deal with Ankara.
“But many don’t believe in this way and are saying ‘well, who knows whether that will work?’ said the chancellor.
“If that’s the way you approach a problem, then indeed it won’t work out.”
Mrs Merkel said of eastern European countries that have tightened their border controls: “The problem is that they acted independently and unilaterally, but it’s not good if a country is not involved.”
She insisted she remained optimistic on tackling the wider refugee crisis, and vowed – with unusual passion – that “it’s my damn duty and obligation to do everything possible for Europe to find a united path”.
Many people in Greece however, fear that Mrs Merkel’s support for Athens will have strings attached. Talk of combining the refugee crisis with the outcome of the evaluation and some relaxation of fiscal targets, may lead to Greece accepting permanent holding encampments for refugees to appease the demands of eastern European countries and Austria .
