Bart De Wever on the refugee crisis: “Greece is part of the problem, not of the solution”

Heavily offended; such was the response of the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras at the mini summit about refugees that Austria and the Balkan countries had dared to organise without him. He promptly threatened to block all European decision-making on the refugee crisis, unless equal distribution of the refugees among all EU Member States is reached, he declared in the Greek parliament. “But such a distribution plan will never work unless it is the final part of a European policy that effectively closes the outer borders and systematically sends non-recognised refugees back,” Bart De Wever warns.

And that is where the Greek prime minister would be better off acknowledging his own faults, the N-VA president believes. “Greece has been part of the problem from the very beginning, rather than part of the solution. Greece ignores all European rules. It did so back in the euro crisis, with grave consequences. And now it is doing the same with the refugee crisis. They have, after all, opened the doors of the Schengen zone,” says Bart De Wever.

From transit country to terminus country

“Greece is a transit country: they do not have their own asylum system and, in other words, do not accommodate anyone themselves.” But now that the other Balkan countries are closing their borders with Greece, Alexis Tsipras is confronted by the consequences of his own policy: the transit country is threatening to turn into a terminus country. And that is the reason for his bold language addressed to the European Union. Bart De Wever sees right through this bold language: “Tsipras is an extremely leftist demagogue. Now that his country has to accommodate people, he screams blue murder. But the bolder his statements, the bigger generally the concessions he will have to make, because the man has beggar status in Europe. He has no choice: he will give in,” predicts Bart De Wever, who is already seeing the Greek government making many concessions. The Greeks are also gradually becoming prepared to carry out a push-back policy towards Turkey.