EU's Tusk urges migrants to stop coming to Europe
EU Council President Donald Tusk told illegal economic migrants on March 3 not to risk their lives or money to make a perilous trip to Europe "for nothing" but said unilateral actions by European Union states to deal with the crisis must stop.
The ultimate aim was to eliminate the illegal sea transit of migrants from Turkey to Greece, Tusk said after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens, although he said no specific numbers had been agreed with the Turks.
"It's not about numbers, it's about the ongoing and permanent process ... which means for me, the total reduction and the total elimination of this sad phenomenon," he told a joint news conference with Davutoglu in Ankara.
Tusk was on a trip through Balkan states and Turkey to try to drum up support for cohesion on how to deal with hundreds of thousands of migrants - a crisis that threatens to tear the bloc apart - before an EU summit on March 7.
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"I want to appeal to all potential illegal economic migrants wherever you are from: Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money. It is all for nothing," Tusk said.
Up to 30,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded in Greece from progressive border closures further up the "Balkan corridor", the route taken to get into wealthier central and northern Europe.
"At March 7's summit, Greece will demand that burden sharing be equitable among all countries in the bloc, and sanctions for those that do not," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said after meeting Tusk.
"We ask that unilateral actions stop in Europe," Tsipras said in a view echoed by Tusk.
Austria and countries along the Balkans migration route have imposed restrictions on their borders, limiting the numbers able to cross.
Many of the migrants hope to reach Germany. Macedonian police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants who stormed the border from Greece on March 7.
