EU Rift Over Refugees Grows as Greece Rebuffs Austrian Visit
- Merkel prods fellow leaders to end bickering over solutions
- Greece warns of humanitarian disaster as northern border shut
Refugees land in Lesbos, Greece in September 2015.
Photographer: Eric Thayer/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Tensions over the handling of Europe’s refugee crisis escalated as Greece denied an Austrian request for talks and the European Union’s top immigration official warned the deepening discord risks disaster.
Political divisions are widening ahead of an extraordinary summit of the EU’s 28 leaders on March 7 called to take stock of efforts to secure the bloc’s external frontiers and mitigate the influx of migrants. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is defending her open-border policy in three regional elections in March, issued a rebuke.