Greece holds out hope for EU action on migration
The EU leadership will travel to the Greek-Turkish
land border on Tuesday.
By NEKTARIA
STAMOULI 3/2/20, 6:49 PM CET Updated 3/3/20, 4:35 AM CET
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| In the meantime, the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has taken measures of its own. The army has been deployed to fortify the border, and officers tried to disperse migrants gathered on the Turkish side by firing tear gas and warning shots |
ATHENS — Greece has a message for Brussels: You should
have seen this coming.
On Tuesday,
the presidents of the European Council, European Commission and European
Parliament will travel to the Greek-Turkish land border in a show of support
for Athens after Turkey announced it would no longer stop migrants from
crossing into the EU.
But
symbolic gestures alone won't placate Greece, which warns that the EU is no
more prepared for a surge in asylum seeker arrivals now than it was in 2015.
"For
the last eight months, Ankara has been threatening to open the 'migration
doors,'" said Greek Deputy Migration Minister George Koumoutsakos.
"We have repeatedly told all our counterparts ... that they need to take
these warnings seriously." Had they listened, Europe might have been
better prepared, he suggested.
Front-line
countries like Greece "have the right to expect solidarity" from
their fellow EU members, said Koumoutsakos.
With its
island reception facilities already over capacity, Greece is expecting more
than statements of support from Brussels.
More than
10,000 migrants have reached Turkey's land border with Greece and Bulgaria, and
Athens says at least 1,000 people have arrived on its islands since Sunday
morning. While the numbers are nowhere near 2015 levels, they herald a
significant increase if Turkey keeps its borders open.
With its
island reception facilities already over capacity, Greece is expecting more
than statements of support from Brussels. But Athens shouldn't hold out hope
for concrete action, said George Pagoulatos, director general of think tank
Eliamep.
“The Greek government has already requested
the deployment of Frontex's rapid border intervention team and got support
comments by top EU officials,” he said. “But the issue is what more can it
expect than that: either a diplomatic intervention to smooth the Syrian crisis
in Idlib ... or a decision of asylum seeker burden-sharing among EU member
states. The first is challenging, the second seems even more so.”
Even the
emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers later this week will be informal and
won't be able to take immediate decisions.
Greek
measures
In the
meantime, the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has taken
measures of its own. The army has been deployed to fortify the border, and
officers tried to disperse migrants gathered on the Turkish side by firing tear
gas and warning shots.
The
government also announced on Sunday that it would no longer accept any new
asylum applications for a month and that it would try to push back migrants.
Mitsotakis said he was invoking Article 78.3 of the EU treaty “to ensure full
European support” and trigger emergency relocation measures.
The United
Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has warned Greece that suspending asylum
applications and pushbacks are illegal both under international and EU law.
Koumoutsakos
argued that any criticism should be directed toward Turkey rather than Greece,
adding, “The country is in urgent need of protecting its borders and security.
This is the highest and most important task of any democratic state."
Nick
Malkoutzis, editor of economic analysis website MacroPolis, said that Athens
had learned the lesson from the 2015 refugee crisis that if it doesn't close
its borders, the countries further north will — leaving any migrants who arrive
marooned in Greece.
First test
The asylum
seekers flocking to Greece's borders are seen as the first major test for
Mitsotakis' conservative government since it came to power last July.
"The
government feels that it has to be seen to be acting decisively, not buckling
under the pressure applied by [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and not
allowing any large influx to strain any further conditions on the islands and
other parts of the country," Malkoutzis said.
"Europe
should show Erdoğan that it is not afraid of him sending people over, [that] it
can deal with it by fair distribution" — Dimitris Vitsas, Syriza lawmaker
and former migration minister
The leftist
opposition party Syriza, which was in power during the 2015 crisis, has called
on the government to request an extraordinary EU summit to come up with a
long-term solution and to focus on mitigating the situation on the overcrowded
islands.
Syriza,
too, expects more than supportive words from the EU. Dimitris Vitsas, a Syriza
lawmaker and former migration minister, said that Brussels needed to get tough
on Turkey.
"Europe
should show Erdoğan that it is not afraid of him sending people over, [that] it
can deal with it by fair distribution" of asylum seekers, Vitsas said,
adding that Ankara should face consequences for its actions.
Before
coming to power, Mitsotakis' New Democracy party had accused Syriza of being
too soft on migration. But the new government, too, has struggled to find an
effective way to address the issue. Migrant arrivals on Greek islands rose
significantly in recent months even before Turkey's announcement last week.
As a
result, Mitsotakis has come under pressure from hard-liners within his party to
adopt a tougher approach.
The
government has already pushed through legislation aiming to speed up
deportations of failed asylum seekers and was in the process of building closed
camps on the islands. It also re-established the migration ministry after
initially abolishing it last year.
But in the
absence of an EU plan to help frontline states, progress has been slow. On
Tuesday, Mitsotakis hopes to show the EU leadership that if it wants to secure
the bloc's borders, it needs to listen to Greece — and follow words with action
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