Closure of the so-called “Balkan route” proved more effective than a EU-Turkey agreement to curb the flow of Mideast refugees towards Europe, “Welt am Sonntag” reports on Sunday in quoting an unpublished Frontex report.
The paper, in citing what it calls the Frontex report, said a decision by authorities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM) on Feb. 19 to limit the number of people entering from Greece drastically reduced the number of third country nationals being ferried over from Turkey to Greece. The paper also cited the significance of a NATO operation in the eastern Aegean on March 20.
Frontex considers, according to the media report, that the two developments were crucial to stemming the tide of refugees using Turkey as a mustering point for entry into Greece and then a further journey to preferred destinations in central and western Europe. Moreover, the subsequent EU-Turkey readmission protocol was deemed as “secondary” in dealing with the crisis.
In a related development on Sunday, residents of the townships of Thermi, Vassilika and Souroti, in rural Thessaloniki prefecture, held a protest against the creation of a temporary refugee shelter in their area, charging that an initial plan to host 1,000 to 1,500 third country nationals at a disused granary ballooned to 3,000, as cited in a recent ministry document.
