Interior and Defence Ministers from 16 European countries, who met on Wednesday, 8 February in the Austrian capital Vienna, agreed to keep the so called Balkan route shut for migrants. Following the proposal of Austrian defence minister Hans Peter Doskozil, the ministers have decided to seal the remaining gaps on their mostly closed borders to secure the blockade of the route by April of 2017. Agreeing to new measures were interior and defence ministers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Greece. More than 7,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded in Serbia since neighbouring countries closed their borders.
Zuzana Botíková, Photo: AP/TASR
