Brussels, 20/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - Greece may consider Turkey a safe third country which may take back migrants whose asylum applications submitted in Greece have been rejected, the European home affairs ministers said on Friday 20 May.
“We today reassessed the situation and restated that as member states, we support Greece in the principle of being able to send back people to Turkey”, announced the Dutch Minister for Migration, Klaas Dijkhoff. He stressed that the 28 EU member states were still convinced that the EU/Turkey agreement of March on migration “is working” (see EUROPE 11515). The Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, approved of the member states' message on the basis of a “positive assessment” of the Commission regarding the level of protection guaranteed in Turkey, for both Syrians and other nationalities. Greece can now give its national asylum application services “legal orientations” to facilitate returns, he added, reiterating the principles of individual treatment of asylum applications and of the non-refoulement of migrants.
So far, no migrants whose asylum applications in Greece were rejected have been sent back to Turkey. On Friday, a committee of appeal on the Greek island of Lesbos said that a Syrian national who had appealed against the rejection of his asylum application could not be sent back to Turkey, through which he had transited, following the institution of the EU/Turkey agreement, on the grounds that Turkey was not a safe country.
Increased financial aid to Greece. On the same day, the Commissioner made available €56 million (€46 million from the Assignment Migration Fund and €10 million from the Internal Security Fund) to help Greece to deal with the asylum applications submitted more quickly and to tackle the humanitarian crisis raging on its territory by improving the conditions for hosting migrants.
Avramopoulos once again called upon the member states to get more involved in the relocation of migrants entitled to EU protection from Greece, but also from Italy. So far, just “1581” people have been relocated, whilst “tens of thousands” remain trapped in Greece, he said, adding that there was “no 'plan B'” on this. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion with Solenn Paulic)