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European Commission gives Greece May 12 deadline to register all refugees & migrants

Europe will set Greece a deadline of May 12 to register all migrants in an orderly fashion or face more border controls, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a German newspaper on Friday. The border controls could be extended if Greece would miss the deadline.

In an interview with German conservative Die Welt, Avramopoulos said that “”Greece will have until May to protect its external borders.”

“We will take stock of the situation on May 12. Should we see no success by then we will not hesitate to create requirements so that border controls in Europe can be extended,” he added.

Avramopoulos told the paper the aim was to lift all border controls that have been instated as a result of the migrant crisis within the passport-free Schengen zone by November.

The EU Commission also plans to present initial plans to reform the Dublin regulation that states that asylum requests be handled where asylum is first claimed in mid-March.

“We are sticking to plans for a permanent distribution mechanism for refugees. It will be associated with the Dublin reform plans. In addition, we will present plans on how asylum standards in Europe can be further harmonized,” he said.

Avramopouls  said further that “80% of refugees and migrants arriving in Greece are been registered” and that “only 660 out of  160,000 people have been replaced in several EU countries.”

Greece has been the main gateway for nearly a million refugees and migrants who have crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey over the past year on their way to wealthier northern Europe, while 120,000 people crossed alone in the first two months of 2016.

The influx has prompted Austria and others along the Balkans migration corridor to impose restrictions on their borders, meaning at least 30,000 people fleeing conflict of poverty in the Middle East are now trapped in Greece. Some European Union states in eastern Europe have opposed mandatory quotas to redistribute migrants across the 28-nation bloc.

sources: die welt, reuters

PS not that the European commission would care about Greece’s external borders. It’s the external borders of EU and Schengen, it cares about but do fairly little to solve the problem.

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4 comments

  1. It’s reached the point where Tsipras has to comprehend that Greece has been totally fucked by the EU. The only solution is to denounce the UN convention and take the matter to the UN security council, and ask the world powers to solve what is nothing to with Greece. The European Commission cannot tie up their shoelaces let alone deal with a humanitarian crisis. The EU is falling apart and has nothing to offer Greece.

  2. Giaourti Giaourtaki

    Instead of sending some people that can identify the families that already have members in the north… Or may be it goes like this: “Oh my friend, your family is in Idomeni? But this no problem my friend, we can give you a ticket to Salonika…”
    The interview sounds like a translator’s mistake that makes the headlines outside Greece as “Greece must protect until May” because “must control until may” sounds lame.
    First they translate it wrong into German and than into English for their buddies at Politico.
    Anyway, registration is very easy: Make cheese and a photo, invent them a name and let them go find their families up north, you can also make a photo of their hands, so you will have fingerprints if you zoom a bit or take the feet for you’ll find so many suspicious footprints at the beach.
    Just imagine what will happen if Greece sends photos instead of scans

  3. Oh right. One week to register everyone including the 2000 that arrive daily? This is Big Theatre and we can draw our own conclusions about Avramopoloulos.