Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas slammed the Financial Times report alleging that several EU ministers and senior EU officials believe that threatening suspension from the Schengen Zone could force Greece to protect its borders more effectively. Mouzalas said that the report complained “falsehoods and distortions”, however Austria’s Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told German newspaper Die Welt that a temporary exclusion of Greece is a possibility.

“If the Athens government does not finally do more to secure the (EU’s) external borders then one must openly discuss Greece’s temporary exclusion from the Schengen zone,” she said. “It is a myth that the Greco-Turkish border cannot be controlled. When a Schengen signatory does not permanently fulfil its obligations and only hesitatingly accepts aid then we should not rule out that possibility.”