Six nations seek new line of defense against migrants
CZECH REPUBLIC | PRAGUE — So where should the next impenetrable razor-wire border fence in Europe be built?
Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban thinks he knows the best place — on Macedonia’s and Bulgaria’s borders with Greece — smack along the main immigration route from the Middle East to Western Europe. He says it’s necessary because “Greece can’t defend Europe from the south” against the large numbers of refugees pouring in, mainly from Syria and Iraq.
The plan is especially controversial because it effectively means eliminating Greece from the Schengen zone, Europe’s 26-nation passport-free travel region that is considered one of the European Union’s most cherished achievements.
Orban’s plan featured prominently Monday at a meeting in Prague of leaders from four nations in an informal gathering known as the Visegrad group: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
“The plan to build a new ‘European defense line’ along the border of Bulgaria and Macedonia with Greece is a major foreign policy initiative for the Visegrad Four and an attempt to re-establish itself as a notable political force within the EU,” said Vit Dostal, an analyst with the Association for International Affairs, a Prague-based think tank.
At Monday’s meeting, leaders from the four nations were joined by Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov so they can push for the reinforcements along Greece’s northern border.
After the meeting, Orban said his country is ready to help “those countries that are ready to create a second defensive line south of Hungary.”
Poland has indicated a willingness to send dozens of police to Macedonia to secure the border.
“If the EU is not active, the Visegrad Four have to be,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said recently. “We have to find effective ways of protecting the border.”
The leaders will try to hash out a unified position ahead of an important EU meeting Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
Hours before the Prague meeting, the European Commission unveiled $11.3 million in finances to help Macedonia improve its borders and migration management, but insisted the money not be used to build fences.