Greece may veto EU decisions over refugee crisis: official

Greece may veto EU decisions over refugee crisis at the upcoming EU summit next week unless a fair and effective common plan to address the ongoing refugee crisis is immediately put in motion, Greek government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassilis said on Tuesday in Athens.

Faced with a looming humanitarian crisis, as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) agency warns, Athens is considering the positions it will present at the EU summit, Gerovassilis said during a regular press briefing.

"Should we veto any decisions? Obviously it would not be the best option, but we must use whatever diplomatic tool so that Greece will not bear the enormous burden of the crisis alone," the Greek official stressed, according to the Greek national news agency AMNA.

It was not the first time that Greece threatened to veto EU decisions adding pressure for a better management of the refugee crisis, local media in Athens noted.

Greece requests the fair allocation of the refugees, the rapid implementation of the EU relocation program so that unilateral actions are prevented and the disbursement of emergency aid to cope with the challenge, Gerovassilis said.

Athens has submitted a plan to the European Commission requesting 480 million euros in emergency funds to set up shelters for up to 100,000 refugees, the Greek official said.

Currently more than 25,000 people are stranded in Greece over the past ten days due to the tight daily limit Austria and Balkan states imposed on the number of refugees allowed to enter their territories, Gerovassilis said.

The number of people "trapped" in Greece increases each day, as the influx from Turkey through the Aegean Sea remains steady despite the deployment of the first NATO ships in the area on Friday to help with the monitoring of the flows, she added.

The challenge is far beyond Greece's capacity to offer adequate aid. A dozen temporary shelters across the country are fully packed and thousands of refugees, including children, are spending the nights in the open in squares and fields with sparse food and water in freezing cold.

In particular along the Greek border with Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) where almost 9,000 people have gathered the past week waiting to cross over, according to Greek police figures, the situation is "very alarming", European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas acknowledged on Tuesday during a press briefing in Brussels on Tuesday.

"FYROM has the right to protect its borders; however, the pictures at the Greek-FYROM borders are very alarming and show that the solution can only be collective and European," he told AMNA confirming that on Wednesday the College of the Commissioners will put forward a plan to offer emergency financial assistance for humanitarian crises within the EU.

A day after some 500 desperate refugees who have been queuing at the Idomeni border crossing for several days broke through the metal fence clashing with FYROM forces, UNHCR officials also expressed deep concern over the situation.

Despite the fact that only a few dozen people are allowed to enter FYROM to carry on with their journey to central and northern Europe lately, refugees continue to head towards the borderline, while the Greek state and NGOs are struggling to provide as much help as possible.

The rapid build-up of people at the northern borders of the already overstretched Greece risks creating a humanitarian disaster, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned in a press release on Tuesday.

"Greece cannot manage this situation alone. It remains absolutely vital therefore that the relocation efforts that Europe agreed to in 2015 are prioritized and implemented. It should concern everyone that despite commitments to relocate 66,400 refugees from Greece, states have so far only pledged 1,539 spaces, and only 325 actual relocations have occurred," the UN refugee agency's spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing in Geneva. Endit