How do Greeks dare say that Turkey is not a safe country to return Syrian asylum seekers? The Europeans in Brussels disagree and are frustrated that the deportations do not proceed with the fast pace they had in mind and put pressure on Athens to replace members on its asylum appeals board. They could also be frustrated and put pressure on EU-member states to fulfill the quote of 6,000 relocations per month from Greece and Italy but that’s subject of another post.
Pressure from the European Council is that Greece should replace judges from the three member asylum appeals body. And so it will happen.
EU Commissioner on Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos confirmed on Friday that the Greek authorities will set up new appeals authorities following a decision of the Justice and Home Affairs Council that took place on 9-10 June 2016.
Avramopoulos underlined that the full and successful implementation of EU – Turkey statement is needed and therefore that it is now time to achieve a drastic increase on resettlement from Turkey.
“Only today, 139 people have been relocated from Greece to France, in one single transfer” stressed Avramopoulos, while arrivals to Greece decrease and returns increase. “2195 persons in need of international protection have been relocated so far, “1420 from Greece and 775 from Italy, but still tens of thousands remain stranded.”
“The situation on the ground will not improve unless member states move faster on relocation,” Avramopoulos added.
Odd but not surprisingly, Avramopoulos pointed out at Greece and forgot to point out specifically at other EU-members neglecting their obligations towards the EU-Turkey agreement.
Avramopoulos said that Greece should improve the reception conditions and capacities in the hotspots and speed up the treatment on more than potential 50,000 asylum applications. “We need to move forward towards a fair and more equitable asylum system for all member states,” as it is an essential element of the EU migration policy. The new asylum system aims to prevent secondary movements and enforce EU rules.
So far Greece asylum committee has ruled on 55 cases out of 57 that it does not consider Turkey a safe country for those individuals.
Dutch Minister for Migration Klaas Dijkhoff told New Europe that he hasn’t reviewed all the individual cases an dunderlined that this appeals committee is not a judicial system. “The Greek authorities are also looking towards this process and what improvements can be made,” he stressed adding “You cannot say that they say that Turkey is not a safe,” and suggested with regards to EU Council, “we have reiterated our support for the fact that Turkey is a safe country to send people, to readmit people to. ”
The Greek government is aware of the changes that have to be made, Dijkoff said and Avramopoulos added that “The Greek authorities will set up new appealing authorities to deal with admissibility decisions. This is separate from asylum applications of the backlog committees.”
The five member appeal body consists of three representatives from the Greek migration ministry, one from state human rights bodies and the UN refugee body, UNHCR. The latter two bodies have criticized the EU-Turkey deal.
So far Greece has refused to state in its asylum law that Turkey is safe for refugees and migrants -a prerequisite for deportations.
Less than 500 migrants have been sent back to Turkey but all were people who probably would have been returned anyway because they volunteered to go back or rejected to seek asylum in Greece, officials said.
Hundreds of asylum applications has not yet been treated, while over 7,000 claims expected by people who have expressed their intention to apply, but have not been able to file a claim yet because of lack of asylum-service personnel. And this is another point of criticism towards the EU, as European staff is reluctant to be assigned to Greece and assist the country in the asylum procedures, as the EU-member states were committed to do when they signed the EU-Turkey deal.
PS as the EU says that this asylum appeal body is not a judicial boy so there is no issue of EU’s intervention in Greece’s judicial authorities. It is just an intervention in changing Greece’s and humanitarian organizations’ mentality *sigh*
Soon the EU will mandate that the poor in Greece are not destitute and indigent. No, they are aggressively competitive from a financial perspective. Likewise those who might be malnourished are not going hungry – they are merely sliming down to a healthy level of fitness. Pass the lobster and more golden perks to these brave bureaucrats in the European Council who are working so hard to look out for the “little people”!
The new appeals committee structure will probably not be legal — that is, in conformity with international law and the ECHR — and can be challenged in the Council of State and the European courts. This is a fight between European politicians and the legal systems of Europe; the UK has already started this sort of fight and wants to weaken judges’ powers and also denounce the ECHR, as well as removing the Human Rights Act.
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In case anyone is unclear how this is described in social science and historical texts, the words are “authoritarian state”, neofascism and fascism. But keep on voting, morons in Germany, Holland, Finland and UK, for the criminals who are destroying Europe. Sheep can only do as they are told. Baaaaa, Three Bags Full.
“In case anyone is unclear how this is described in social science and historical texts, the words are “authoritarian state”, neofascism and fascism”
Bravo for stating the truth. Maybe you should inform Varoufakis where the real fascist threat lies.
Also on Thursday the EU-“judges” made lay-offs easier to achieve for greedy “restructure” piggies:
hri.org/news/greek/ana/2016/16-06-10.ana.html#10