Michalis Chrisochoidis, Greece’s new Minister for Citizen Protection, has called on members of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties to urge their governments to help his country, particularly in dealing with the critical migrant situation on the Greek islands.
In an exchange of views on the migration situation in both Greece and Turkey on Wednesday, 6 November, the minister referred in particular to his appeal to other Ministers of the Interior to accept some of the 4,000 unaccompanied minors who are currently in Greece, most of whom are “housed in structures that are not worthy of the EU”. However, according to the minister, “we received just one reply!”. “So l am calling on all governments and the whole of civil society to act to solve this problem”.
The minister explained the actions the new right-wing government is taking to address overcrowding in reception centres on the Greek islands. He explained that the new law aims to shorten asylum processes, which can sometimes take up to 3 years, while respecting the requirements of the EU/Turkey declaration of March 2016, which is mainly based on returning Syrian asylum seekers to Turkey.
The minister reported that the situation on the islands was deteriorating and that there had been an increase in the numbers arriving, with “hundreds of people arriving every day”. The “distance between the Turkish coasts and the Greek islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios is very short; you can cross over in just 13 minutes”. He added that, although flows from Turkey had still been manageable up until July this year, “since August, they have increased by about 120%”, going so far as to call it “a tsunami” of people coming to Greece, a word that was poorly received on the left.
The minister said that “in the last 2 weeks, about 4,000 people have been transferred from the islands to the centre of the country to relieve the pressure on the islands”, noting also that another 3,000 people had “arrived during almost the same period”.
Paraskevi Michou, the European Commission's Director General for Home Affairs, acknowledged that the situation is “very bad”, but Greece has not been left to manage alone, receiving up to €2 billion in aid with “permanent officials” from Europol, EASO or Frontex on hand. She acknowledged that the European Commission had asked Greece to change its laws in order to speed up procedures. “If I ask the Netherlands how long it takes to process a request for asylum, and I have done so, they tell me 3 months in most cases; we can do better than 2 or 3 years!”
While Greece plans to transfer 20,000 people from the islands to the mainland (there are already 14,000 in Moria camp on Lesbos), the Commission believes that priority should be given to moving people who are entitled to international protection and to being careful about the profile of displaced persons.
With regard to the EU/Turkey declaration, Mrs Michou admitted that the system had been working less well since the summer, but “that doesn't mean it isn't working!”. For this reason, we have to keep talking with Turkey to improve things, as Turkey is in a difficult situation itself. “Every week, they intercept 4,000 people who want to go to Greece.” The Commissioner announced that the EU is preparing a new €50 million package, part of which will be used by the Turkish coastguard to manage the flows.
The Greek Minister is of the opinion that it is vital to make the declaration work better, particularly with respect to returning migrants to Turkey, but that the basic principles must be retained, i.e. accommodating Syrian refugees on Turkish soil with European aid provided in return.
The way the EU/Turkey declaration operates was also discussed on Wednesday by MEPs, who are concerned that the €6 billion paid in aid may be being diverted to secret objectives in northern Syria.
The Commission assured them that no money whatsoever was going directly into Turkish coffers, except for reimbursement of expenses to schools and money for care of refugees, with most of the money going to local agencies or NGOs such as the Red Cross. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)