Austria’s foreign minister Sebastian Kurz defended his country’s decision not to invite Greece to a conference of West Balkan nations focused on managing the migrant crisis.
Sebastian Kurz said that Greece has “clearly expressed no interest in reducing the (migrant) influx and in contrast wants to continue waving them through” to Macedonia, from where they make their way northward. Austria has imposed limits on the number of refugees allowed to enter.
The statement by Kurz comes ahead of a meeting Wednesday of Austrian and West Balkan government ministers in Vienna aiming at finding common solutions to crimping the refugee flow.
Greece is not invited. Austria’s Interior Ministry says the conference is set up in a “regular format” that does not include Athens.
Austria invited Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia.
Odd. Austria did not also invite Germany, the country that the majority of refugees declare as their destination. But Austria’s aim is this one and only: to cut the Balkan Route and have thousands of refugees trapped in Greece.
I wonder, what kind of concessions Vienna will give to the countries it once occupied as the “Austro-Hungarian Empire“and to those that are not EU-members.
Reports claim that it will offer FYROM to send Austrian soldiers to guard its borders to Greece.
I suppose Austria’s nationalists just try to revive the famous “k.u.k” the Imperial (Austria) and Royal (Hungary) Empire of the Habsburg dynasty 1867-1918.
Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are on the side of Austria anyway, through the Visegrad Four Group.
PS So much of united Europe spirit….:p
So the song “United States of the Balkans” might get a title change…
Merkel seems to be pissed off too, she refuses to answer any CSU-shit until next EU-summit because she could believe that Bavaria and Vienna made a secret deal. So, as Austria also is closing the border to Italy, Renzi is also pissed off and this would open the chance to let the refugees travel via Adria and around Austria; Athens should talk about this with NGOs, Berlin, Rome and Paris
My standard routine in Greece has always been to immediately, as soon as Greeks noticed that I speak German, to immediately point out that I am Austrian and not German. And the standard reaction of Greeks was always great relief that I was Austrian and not German. Many would proceed to explain to me that Austrians, as opposed to Germans, are really very, very nice people.
Given what is happening these days between Austria and Greece, it looks like I will have to change my standard routine…
don’t fall victim to your ego. it’s about the refugees. PS I love Austrian sweets
This sounds like an opinion-pool in any well fed Austrian “Forum” where they kick out all “pro-Greeks” they identify kinda stigma “communist” in 50ies and 60ies in Greece: “No crisis in Greece – all street cafés were crowded!” or “I’ve seen so many SUVs”, if you’d do real research you’d figure that every 10th Greek was in Germoney as “Gastarbeiter” and that German language kids can learn at school but hopefully the Austrian cops don’t get arrested at the wrong side of the border… I’d love to see this: “But mister, this is Schengen!” “No sir, you’re an invader from FYROM”
Time to call it the end of Europe?
No! Time to call it the end of being generous and ethical at the expenses of others era!
Exactly, so arrest all phoney citizens for Bloodphone-Holocaust and stop producing overpopulation that you only can feed by massmurder for resources, with every chopped off head your gasoline prices sunk. Remember food is not growing in supermarkets.
Finally Europe has to take care and guarantee its outer borders because as long as Erdogun Osman and his Grey Wolves are threatening with war, border control is not possible or you have to shoot every war-ship and war-jet that is entering European space. If this would have been the case already last spring European media would be full about Davoutoglou claiming 16 Greek islands “Turkish”, of which one is inhabited by 1500 people and most are exactly in the zone where refugees enter, except from a few that are around Crete.
This is a copy of my message to Federal Minister Sebastian Kurz sent via the contact form on the Foreign Ministry’s website.
I think they will find a way to implement my idea. It will be, as always, a ” clean and civilised”and INHUMAN approach.
Subject refugees
Message Dear Sir,one is the way to stem the flow of refugees into Europe: to build a wall around Syria,Iraq,Libya and Afghanistan and if you would like to reduce the cost of such an operation just make a insurmountable fence around each of these countries.This way,you let them kill each other to the end inside the respective country and help keep Europe intact.This is a clean and civilised European way to do things. Good luck.
bitter. but good.
It was not my intention to be bitter. Just to shake him a little,I wanted. Was he shaken? No. he does not -they do not-give a damn. They just do not care about people. They do not want refugees in Europe.
My parents were refugees from Asia Minor-1922.My maternal grand mother used to narrate to me,that any Armenians or Greeks who were swimming to approach the ships(who had arrived there to pick up the European nationals) in the gulf of Izmir, were met with boiling water poured on them-as a deterrent to push those people away. This is my bitter memory that one of my uncles experienced.
Thanks! Keep on keeping on!
Greece is now as a country experiencing, what many of the “refugee welcome” activists in my country had to experience in recent months. Reality!
It is wonderful to be humanitarian and ethical correct, as long as you do not have to pay for your morals by yourself. It was easy for Greece to save lifes and play mr. Goodguy, as they did not have to care for these lives. Now they are confronted with the consequences of their “humanity” which, in my opinion, was often, simply less elaborate than undertaking the unpopular effort to sustain a strict sea border and keep illegal imigrants out.
If the Balkan now stays closed for longer…. humanitarian sentiment will immediately swap into sinking every tiny ship that dares to cross the sea border. Latest if the rape waves start, like here in the north, people will take their own boats to hunt them down.
I think, in the case of greek refugee politics we are not so much confronted with ethical concerns by greek politicians but with the mentality of an oriental bazar salesman, that wants to get the best bargain out of the crisis for himself. Too bad that the client changed! Now, greek Politicians are no longer dealing with naive straight forwarded germans, but with slick austrians, that have a very good sense for balkans, as we share a lot of our cultural heritage with this region. We know what we are at… and we are acting in this way.
Obviously a landlocked country like Austria has no idea how difficult it is to police a +1200km sea border and find tiny invisible little inflatable boats. Austrians should build a wall around their own clearly perfect country and stay inside it forever.
But then their coast-guard can’t train killing refugees in Lake Constance like they do every summer when they cross the Austrian Sea and ask swimmers on Swiss and German shores if they like to earn a few beers and take part in their exercises.
TV-Teams are needed not only there but also here: The Austrian police in Fyrom must take care of that Bulgarian lorry-drivers are not closing the border to Fyrom.
Austria controls the Vienna-based International centre for migration policy development, which has expertise across the continent. They therefore have immediate access to anything they need to know. What is more of a problem is that Greece is not a co-owner of the centre: it is jointly owned by Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and all of the Balkan states.
~
So, ignorance is not a reason. This is wilful and malicious damage to Greece.
yes, anbd they have hold other WEstBalk conference too
I suggest that Austrians worry a little more about conforming to the laws of the EU and international law, along with some recognition of their not very respectable history in Europe. The fact that the Far Right is strong and increasing in popularity in Austria — the birthplace and homeland of Adolf Hitler — is the main reason that the current government are trying to behave like Nazis.
Do you think that Vienna is still pissed because until 1942 planned “Euro-Guilders” never materialized and so the “Europa-Bank” never hailed in Vienna but now as ECB from Krankfurt?
Interesting is also that Vienna’s vivil-execution minister Michael Leider was again agitating the mob with more “Greeks out of Schengen” threats or blurbs. It’s always nice when rookies try to kick out old-school!