Spielfeld (Austria) (AFP) – Austria on Friday introduced a daily cap on asylum seekers which could trigger a domino effect of border clampdowns on the Balkan migrant trail from Greece up to northern Europe.

The move sparked an angry reaction from the European Union saying the “unilateral actions” are “incompatible” with EU law.

Instead EU leaders, spearheaded by Germany, hope to firm up a deal with Ankara at a special summit in March. 

Under the pact, Turkey would close its borders and then fly refugees to Europe for resettlement in exchange for three billion euros.

“We agreed that our joint action plan with Turkey remains a priority and we must do all we can to succeed,” European Council President Donald Tusk said earlier Friday at a two-day EU summit.

However, central European countries have already rejected the EU resettlement plan and are instead pushing to seal off Greece, the entry point for many migrants, from the passport-free Schengen zone.

In response, Athens has threatened to veto an accord keeping Britain in the bloc at marathon talks on Friday unless EU members stop the border clampdown, a Greek government source told AFP Friday.

Big rifts have opened up in the 28-nation bloc as the continent grapples with its biggest migration crisis since World War II, which saw more than a million people land on Europe’s shores in 2015 and shows no sign of abating.

More than 80,000 people — many of them children — have braved the perilous journey across the Aegean Sea since January, with most fleeing war and violence in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The UN’s children agency warned Friday that the number of children dying was on the rise.

“An average of two children have drowned every day since September 2015,” UNICEF said, describing the short sea stretch between Turkey and Greece “as among the deadliest routes in the world for refugees and migrants”.

Meanwhile, the EU border agency Frontex told AFP on Friday it had already detected 140,000 illegal border crossings so far this year. 

In particular, Frontex noted a 55-percent increase “in flows coming to Italy from Libya” compared with January last year. 

– ‘Put the brakes on’ –

In Austria a maximum of 80 migrants per day are now being allowed to claim asylum. Vienna is also limiting the daily number of people transiting through to seek asylum in a neighbouring state to 3,200.

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner warned on Friday the cap could be lowered even further, saying: “We need to put the brakes on.” 

Following Austria’s tighter measures, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia have also tightened their borders.

Once the limits at Austria’s main border crossing with Slovenia have been reached, “the borders will be closed,” police spokesman Fritz Grundnig told AFP on Friday.

However, “not a single migrant has arrived since yesterday (afternoon) and we don’t expect any to arrive today because of the bad weather,” he added. 

The asylum-seeker cap is in line with Austria’s announcement last month that it would only take in 37,500 asylum seekers this year — sharply down from the 90,000 it accepted in 2015, making it one of the bloc’s highest recipients on a per-basis capita. 

Vienna has joined the so-called Visegrad Four (V4) group — Hungary, Poland, Slovkia and the Czech Republic — in their call for tighter EU controls inside Schengen.

“I made clear, if everyone would take as much as Austria… it would be two million in the European Union just in this year,” Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said Thursday in Brussels.

Germany — which received more than one million asylum claims in 2015 — acknowledged that the EU “must see quickly if measures (agreed with Turkey) work”.

A meeting with Turkey and the leaders of 11 EU countries had been planned before the EU summit on Thursday, but was cancelled after Turkey’s premier Ahmet Davutoglu pulled out following a bomb attack in Ankara.

A special summit is now due to take place in early March.

Separately, the police chiefs of Austria and four other countries on the Balkan migrant route announced an agreement Thursday for a joint refugee registration point at the Greek-Macedonian border.