Greece and Schengen

From Welt am Sonntag - "Die Geduld mit Griechenland ist zu Ende"

"Wenn es nicht gelingt, die europäische Außengrenze, sprich die türkisch-griechische Grenze zu sichern, dann wird sich die Schengenaußengrenze Richtung Mitteleuropa bewegen", sagte die österreichische Innenministerin Johanna Mikl-Leitner.

"Ich bin fest überzeugt, dass es notwendig ist, hier eine gemeinsame Grenz- und Küstenwache zu installieren. Der Vorschlag liegt auf dem Tisch und wird heute auch im Mittelpunkt stehen", sagte sie nach Angaben der Nachrichtenagentur APA vor dem Treffen. Es sei "ein Mythos", dass die griechisch-türkische Grenze nicht zu schützen sei. "Denken wir an die Marine in Griechenland. Die hätte ausreichend Kapazitäten, um die Grenzen zu schützen".

The Times - Greece given six weeks to stop migrant surge

The Australian - "Germany, Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark will warn today that Greece has six weeks to stop migrants crossing from Turkey or it will be “quarantined” outside the European Union’s borderless Schengen area".

"A meeting of European interior ministers will discuss plans for Greece to be sealed off for two years behind a new EU external border in the Balkans. Northern European countries are frustrated that Greece has opened only one of five refugee processing and detention centres it agreed to set up with EU help. “If the Athens government does not finally do more to secure the external borders then one must openly discuss Greece’s temporary exclusion from the Schengen zone,” Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Austria’s interior minister, told Welt am Sonntag. “It is a myth that the Greco-Turkish border cannot be controlled.” The Times

The Guardian, EU Border Controls

Update, 26 January, the views of Keep Talking Greece

The Telegraph - Greece faces being sealed off from Europe to stop migrant flow in move that creates 'cemetery of souls' - 'Plan emerges to seal Greek border with Macedonia as EU leaders meet in Amsterdam for crisis talks to 'save' Schengen area'

FT, Peter Spiegel

Reuters - 'Running out of time', EU puts Greece, Schengen on notice

Pappas Post - 'European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker Abandons Greece, bets on FYROM to Control Refugee Flow'

Newsweek - GREECE FURIOUS OVER SCHENGEN SUSPENSION PLANS

Pappas Post, Greece Furious -  Greece Furious at European Plans to Exclude the Country from Schengen; Denounces European “Lies”

Kathimerini - Politico: Την παραμονή προσφύγων σε ελληνικό έδαφος υποστηρίζει ο Γιουνκέρ

John Psaropoulos, The New Athenian - Greece reacts to EU's hardliners on refugees

Deutsche Welle - Greece pressed to improve Schengen checks

Deutsche Welle - Opinion: EU levels empty Schengen threat at Greece

The Telegraph - Is Greece about to be martyred again by the EU?

Pappas Post - Financial Times: Greece Cannot Become a Holding Pen for Migrants; Slams European Leadership’s “Crude” Measures

Kathimerini - Greece pledges to speed up delivery of migrant 'hotspot' centres

Kathimerini - EU ministers want to buttress borders to stem refugee flow

EU Observer: Erdogan and the EU

Euronews, 12 February 2016 - Greece is given three months to tighten border controls

BBC News - Schengen zone: EU gives Greece deadline on borders

A view from Observing Greece blog - "I wonder why the EU is threatening an exclusion from Schengen, temporary or not, when such an exclusion does not seem to offer any improvement in the refugee crisis. Perhaps there is indeed another hidden agenda on the part of the EU".

Pappas Post - "The European Union gave Greece a 90-day deadline on Friday to figure out a way to control its borders, or be subject to the possibility of getting stuck with millions of refugees and effectively be removed from the Schengen passport-free travel zone established by the EU decades ago. The EU announcement on Friday states that Greece has one month to “establish an action plan to remedy the deficiencies … [and]within three months of the same date, it shall report on the implementation.”

EU Observer - Tusk: Excluding Greece from Schengen would solve nothing

Bild - Interview with Juncker - "Four eastern-European states want to close the Macedonian border to Greece. Will this lower the number of refugees at the German borders?"

Juncker: "It would be neither legal nor politically acceptable to cooperate with third countries in order to close the border to one of our member states. We support the border security on both sides – the Greek and the Macedonian. We will only be successful if we work together more closely and cooperatively and if we do not destroy any trust. We must not risk Schengen and thereby also our domestic freedom.“

Kathimerini, 20 February, 2016 - Borders will not close, insists Tsipras after talks