IDOMENI, Greece—Greece made a strongly worded complaint to Austria Tuesday for drastically restricting migrant crossings, as police at the Greek border with Macedonia removed hundreds of Afghan migrants stranded at a camp there.
Athens has criticized Austria’s decision last week to cap the daily number of asylum applications and migrants crossing the country — an action that has left thousands stranded in Greece.
The Austrian ambassador to Greece was summoned to the foreign ministry to receive the complaint Tuesday after Austria invited officials from western Balkan countries to a meeting on migration in Vienna Wednesday, excluding Greece.
The ministry described the meeting as a “unilateral move which is not at all friendly toward our country.”
More than 1 million migrants and refugees reached the EU last year, with more than 80 percent of them traveling from Turkey to nearby Greek islands. Arrivals have continued this year at an average of 4,000 each day
The Austrian initiative prompted Macedonia at the weekend to stop Afghan migrants at the border, and slow the rate at which asylum-seekers from Syria and Iraq were allowed to cross the border.
In France, hundreds of migrants camped in the port of Calais face a deadline Tuesday evening to move out. , However, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve insisted the evacuation would be “progressive.”
In an early morning operation, police at the Greek-Macedonian border ordered mostly Afghan migrants on to buses bound for Athens, in the south of the country. Journalists were not allowed to approach the area.
