The European Commission will be in contact with the Greek authorities to ask them for explanations regarding the planned floating barriers between Turkey and the Aegean islands to prevent migrants from reaching Greece.
"We will contact the Greek authorities to better understand what the purpose of these barriers is; it is not clear to us at this stage", was the reaction of Adalbert Jahnz, spokesperson for Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
The Greek government announced on Wednesday 29 January that it intends to launch a pilot project of floating barriers or floating protection systems for which it has launched a call for tenders. A test phase is underway. "We want to see if it works and where such a scheme can be implemented", Greek Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said on 30 January.
On the face of it, the spokesperson said, erecting barriers is not a practice contrary to EU law, if it "does not prevent the lodging of an asylum application", and therefore does not constitute "refoulement".
"Insomnia"
The announcement comes the day after a debate in the European Parliament during which the European Commissioner and elected representatives once again condemned the living conditions of migrants on the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, where, to date, 40,000 people are crammed into overcrowded camps.
The commissioner said she had "insomnia" about it. She considered it "unacceptable" that women, children and the elderly should live in such conditions.
To this end, she praised the announcements of the new Greek government, which planned to transfer unaccompanied minors to the mainland and to create more compliant centres on the islands.
"Is that enough? No, we need to do more", added the Commissioner.
According to Nikolina Brnjac, Croatian State Secretary for Relations with the European Parliament, with 69,000 migrant arrivals in Greece in 2019 (via the Aegean Sea), "it is the first time" that such figures have been reached since the EU-Turkey agreement of March 2016.
Incident with Turkey
Turkey was the subject of an incident during the debate when Greek MEP Ioannis Lagos (NI) accused Turkey of "flooding" Europe with migrants, adding that "the Turkish flag is full of blood", before tearing up a representation of the Turkish flag. "We have to say it: Turks out!", the former member of Golden Dawn, a right-wing Greek neo-Nazi extremist party, added.
Ankara expressed its anger via Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu. "Those of a racist mindset know how we break any fingers that come near our flag (...) The spoiled children of Europe should learn to keep to their own place. Europe must say 'stop' to hostility towards Islam", he said on Twitter.
"We expect the European Parliament to do something about this clown", Cavusoglu added. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)