Serbia says neighbors will take just '500 migrants a day'

BELGRADE, Serbia

Serbia has received official notification that Slovenia and Croatia will not receive more than 500 migrants a day, the country’s interior minister has said.

Speaking to Belgrade based Pink TV Nebojsa Stefanovic said: "Last night, we received notice from the Croatian police, which they obtained from Slovenian police, that from now on … Slovenia and Croatia will not receive more than 500 people a day and this is the latest shift."

Stefanovic added that Serbia received a written statement about the new regulation after a request.

There are less than 2,000 migrants currently in Serbia and in the last days only 38 of them applied for asylum, according to the interior ministry.

Stefanovic claimed that people who sought asylum are buying time to proceed further:

"They do not want to stay in Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia. Their aim is to [reach] some of the Western Europe countries."

Stefanovic also announced that a meeting on Tuesday in Belgrade will gather the director of Greece’s police force as well as representatives of Balkan route countries, plus Germany and the Netherlands.

The refugee influx previously caused Hungary to build a border fence to control the flow of people, before sealing its frontier with Serbia.

Macedonia and Slovenia also built border fences to control refugee movements in 2015.

Greece received more than 850,000 refugees fleeing war zones in 2015, according to the UNHCR. Already this year, more than 35,000 people have reached the country despite winter temperatures and stormy weather.

The refugee crisis has caused tension in Europe with some EU interior ministers, in January, threatening to exclude Greece from the Schengen visa-free travel zone.