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Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Austria wants a full stop to migrant influx along Balkans

VIENNA (AP) — Austria wants not only to crimp the influx of migrants pouring into Europe but to fully stop it, its interior minister declared Wednesday as she convened a meeting of ministers from Western Balkan nations. Greece was highly critical of Wednesday's meeting in Vienna, which was attended by the interior and foreign ministers of EU members Slovenia, Croatia and Bulgaria, as well officials from Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. [...] German Chancellor Angela Merkel remains focused not on border controls but on Turkey, from where hundreds of thousands have crossed to Greece, as key to resolving Europe's immigration crisis. Along with Austria, countries on the migrant route to western Europe already have introduced stricter transit rules in the past weeks. Greece, he said, was applying diplomatic pressure on EU and NATO allies to limit unilateral actions by EU member states to restrict entry to asylum-seekers and to make recently deployed patrols by the military alliance in the Aegean Sea more effective.


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