Europe slaps new restrictions on migrants, fails to show solidarity

More than 110,000 migrants have arrived in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year, adding to the more than 1 million people that landed on the continent in 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration. While the influx shows no sign of abating, many countries keep introducing harsh measures and fail to show solidarity, which puts the Schengen system and the EU itself in danger. In the last few months of 2015, six out of the 26 members of the Schengen zone re-established provisional border controls without closing the borders altogether. While Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden did so in a bid to better control the influx of migrants, France also re-established checks in reaction to the terrorist threat after last November's multiple attacks.

Blocked in the Balkans

Macedonia on Feb. 21 entirely closed its border to Afghans, stranding hundreds in Greece, and introduced more stringent document checks for Syrians and Iraqis seeking to cross into its territory en route to Northern and Western Europe.
On Feb. 15, Slovenia also toughened its filtering system for migrants. On Feb. 22, Slovenia's parliament authorized the army to help police manage the flow of migrants crossing into the country from non-Schengen member Croatia. Croatia began to filter migrants in November, letting through only those fleeing wars – Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians. On Jan. 20, Zagreb decided that it would only let through migrants demanding asylum in Germany or Austria.

Barriers to entry in Western Europe

On Feb. 23, Belgium temporarily reintroduced border controls with France in order to halt the arrival of migrants from the "Jungle" camp in the northern port town of Calais who seek to get to Britain and could use Belgium as a transit route. The camp is due to be partly demolished.
Austria, which last year took in 90,000 asylum seekers and let almost 10 times as many travel through, on Feb. 19 imposed a daily limit of 80 claims and said only 3,200 migrants could transit to neighboring states. It has limited asylum requests for 2016 to 37,500. The Austrian government on Feb. 15 announced it would place the six nations of Algeria, Georgia, Ghana, Mongolia, Morocco and Tunisia on its list of "safe countries of origin," meaning migrants can be returned. Germany, which registered around 1.1 million asylum requests in 2015, announced in late January it was limiting numbers by blocking some migrant family reunifications and declaring three North African nations – Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia – as "safe countries of origin."

Under the new measures Berlin will block family reunifications for two years for rejected asylum seekers, who cannot be deported because they face the threat of torture or the death penalty in their own country. Since Jan. 1, Berlin has also reintroduced individual examinations of asylum requests, including for Syrians, who had previously benefited from a quasi-automatic right to asylum.

One of the hottest debates concerning the migrant crisis, a controversial Danish law aimed at dissuading migrants from seeking asylum by delaying family reunifications by three years and allowing authorities to confiscate migrants' valuables, entered into force on Feb. 5.
In late January, Sweden also said it expected that around 45 percent of those who sought asylum last year would ultimately be rejected, leading to the expulsion of up to 80,000 people. Similarly, the Finnish government expects to deport around two-thirds of the 32,000 asylum seekers that arrived in 2015.

After a series of border clampdowns, a large number of Syrian refugees are waiting to cross into Albania, the Balkan nation's integration minister said Thursday. Integration Minister Klajda Gjosha said the buildup on Albania's border appeared to be in response to neighboring Macedonia's decision on the weekend to deny entry to Afghan migrants coming from Greece and impose tougher checks for Syrians and Iraqis.

Although both Macedonia and Albania share a border with Greece, the latter has so far not been a main transit country on the migrant trail into Northern and Western Europe. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has said that Albania will not become the new route for migrants headed for Western Europe "because we have neither the conditions, nor the strength, nor the enthusiasm to save the world while others close their borders."
Earlier this week, the new head of the U.N. refugee agency warned that border closures by European states alarmed by the migration crisis will cause "further chaos and confusion."

The majority of migrants come from the Middle East and Africa. The turmoil in the Middle East and the five-year war in Syria have led many people to flee the conflict in an attempt to seek security and shelter in a more prosperous and peaceful country, such as those in Europe. However, Europe has been slammed for lacking a collaborative response to the crisis.