Brussels has finally clarified its position on the Wall between which you want to build Turkey and Bulgaria: The Commission will not fund such work. The spokesman for the European executive stated in the past few hours that Eric Mamer. In this way, the EU’s highest political authorities nipped in the bud any leak regarding Community funding to strengthen the Bulgarian border. An indiscretion that has emerged in recent days from statements by the governments of Austria and the Netherlands that it is necessary to start discussing the construction of new barriers against migrants in Europe.
The words of the Commission representative
“The Commission will not finance walls”. That’s how spokesman Eric Mamer made his debut immediately when asked about the issue at a press conference in Brussels this morning. There are two reasons for the Commission’s authoritative position: one natural legal and the other instead politics.
In the first case, the reference refers to the fact that the issue of increasing barriers only concerns Member States. “It is up to member states to determine how best to fulfill their border management obligations,” Mamer said. “The EU is there to support them in this framework.”
In the second case, however, it is clear that the current municipal council does not consider the building of real walls to be sufficient or at least advisable. “The Commission – continued the spokesman – finances measures and actions that contribute to a good protection of its borders, including mobile and fixed infrastructures, but it will not finance the construction of walls”.
“With a wall,” Mamer then emphasized, “we’re talking about a fixed infrastructure that keeps people away. A structure made of brick or some other material, while fences are different. But beyond the words we’re talking about ‘about that we wouldn’t fund infrastructure that we think is a wall, so something that keeps people out’.
“In any case, according to the European Commission spokesman, Member States have an obligation to ensure that people seeking a safe haven in Europe can come to Europe To their asylum application or know.”
The position of Austria and the Netherlands
In the days before the last meeting of European interior ministers, there was talk of building a new barrier on the EU’s eastern border. The first to refer to this was the Austrian Chancellor, Karl Nehammer. The latter, concerned about the increase in migration flows from the Balkan route, has proposed a European initiative to build a wall between Turkey and Bulgaria. In fact, a large proportion of Middle Eastern migrants bound for Central and Northern Europe would pass through here. Austria is particularly involved in human trafficking. “The European Union – according to some government sources in Vienna – must take over the wall between Bulgarian and Turkish territory”.
Position shared by the Netherlands. Dutch Minister Eric Van Der Burg called on the EU to take care of the new barrier yesterday in Stockholm, where the Council of Home Affairs Ministers was taking place. “The construction of a barrier on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey – according to the minister’s statements – is an important issue for Greece and some other countries such as Austria, which are pushing for this solution in order to limit the arrival of migrants without permission into the living room . For us, the wall is a concrete possibility.”