Bloc to keep Balkan migrant routes closed
SOFIA, April 4, (Agencies): The European Union is determined to stick to a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of undocumented migrants into the bloc, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
Tusk, who met Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev, welcomed Sofia’s efforts to boost security on its southeastern border with Turkey to prevent migrants from crossing. He said Brussels would provide additional financing if the situation worsened.
“We are determined to keep routes of illegal migration in this region closed,” Tusk told reporters. “We remain committed to the full implementation of the EUTurkey statement.
“The EU is honouring its commitments, just like we expect Turkey to continue keeping its part of the deal.”
The EU-Ankara agreement came into force in March 2016 after more than a million refugees and migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond reached Europe in 2015, many crossing to Greek islands from Turkey.
“Should further difficulties arise on Bulgaria’s borders, the EU has already planned emergency funding, and stands ready to react quickly in support of Bulgaria,” Tusk said. Turkey has said it may cancel the migrant readmission agreement, under which it takes back people who enter Greece through irregular routes. It was angered after several EU states prevented Turkish politicians from holding rallies to drum up support for plans to give President Tayyip Erdogan new powers in a referendum.
Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest member, expressed concern about a possible new migrant influx given that Turkey-EU tensions are running high.
“It is extremely important for us to develop good neighbourly relations with Turkey,” Radev said. “At the same time, rising tensions between the EU and Turkey create the greatest risk for Bulgaria.”
Tusk said in Macedonia on Monday he hoped the country’s leaders would avoid fueling ethnic tensions and focus on advancing towards EU membership instead.
The Balkan state, with a Slav majority and a large ethnic Albanian minority, has been without a government since December, when inconclusive elections led to feuding over the influence of ethnic Albanians in a proposed coalition administration.
Tusk met President Gjorge Ivanov on Monday to discuss ways out of the political crisis that has mired the country since a 2015 surveillance scandal that forced nationalist Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to resign.
“I came here with the strong message from the EU leaders that commitment to European perspectives is unequivocal,” Tusk told reporters after meeting Ivanov.
“I therefore hope that you will continue to follow this compass and avoid anything that could further fuel tensions also along ethnic lines.”
In a snap election in December, the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE won 51 seats to the Social Democrats’ 49, leaving neither able to form a government without parties representing ethnic Albanians, who make up a third of the population.
Last month Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev won the support of three ethnic Albanian parties after promising them a law on wider use of Albanian language, a deal which triggered daily protests in Skopje. But Ivanov refused to give Zaev a mandate to form a government.
“The new government cannot be contested by anyone,” Ivanov said after meeting Tusk. “A blackmailed government is an unstable government that will only last a short time and have damaging consequences.”
The crisis is the worst since Western diplomacy helped drag the country of 2.1 million people back from the brink of civil war during an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001, promising it a path to membership of the European Union and of NATO.
At an EU summit earlier last month EU leaders reiterated their commitment to the Balkans. Russia is trying to increase its influence in the region.
Macedonia’s accession into the EU and NATO has been blocked over a name dispute with Greece, which has a northern province also called Macedonia and regards Skopje’s use of the name as illegitimate.
Tusk and Ivanov also discussed Europe’s migrant crisis. Macedonia was on the forefront of the crisis in 2015 when hundreds of thousands of people from Middle East, Asia and Africa crossed the Western Balkans on their way towards Western Europe.
Portugal’s prime minister said Tuesday the country’s finance minister was recently asked whether he would be available to become the eurozone’s top official, replacing Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
Antonio Costa said in an interview with Lisbon’s Radio Renascenca that Portugal rejected the approach because Finance Minister Mario Centeno is still guiding the country out of its recent financial crisis.
Costa did not say who approached Portugal nor when, but he confirmed a report in Portuguese weekly Expresso last weekend that said Centeno was a potential candidate to chair meetings of the 19-country eurozone’s finance ministers.
Portugal called last month for Dijsselbloem to quit after he made what some saw as derogatory remarks about southern EU nations.
In an interview last month with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dijsselbloem said: “I cannot spend all my money on liquor and women and then ask for your support,” in reference to European countries that needed state bailouts. Those countries include three from southern Europe — Greece, Portugal, and Cyprus — as well as Ireland.
Dijsselbloem’s future is unclear after his Labor Party’s weak showing in recent Dutch elections and he faced fierce criticism in the European Parliament this week for not attending a meeting.
Leftist German European lawmaker Fabio De Masi called Dijsselbloem “gutless” for not showing up and said his comments in the German newspaper “demonstrate his incompetence and utter lack of character.”
In a letter to members of the European Parliament on Tuesday, Dijsselbloem said his comments in the interview were intended to underscore “the importance of solidarity and reciprocity within the European Union” and were not aimed at southern EU member states.
But he also expressed regret at having caused offense.
“Choice of words is of course personal as is the way they are picked up,” Dijsselbloem wrote. “I shall be even more careful in the future as it is never my intention to insult people.”