Greece

This week, EU negotiators are hammering out the final details of the long-awaited EU migration pact.

Ahead of the trilogues, Stephanie Pope, Oxfam EU migration expert, said: “The deal is nothing but a house of cards incapable of fixing the EU’s broken asylum system. After years of negotiation, we are left with a pact that ushers in increased detention, more pushbacks, and dubious deals with non-EU countries.

The European Commission has launched an infringement procedure against Greece about how they treat people arriving in Europe to seek asylum and the asylum process. This could result in the Commission taking Greece to court. Oxfam has been advocating for this for years due to Greece's systematic breaches of EU asylum law. This includes launching a joint legal complaint with other human rights groups.

The Greek government is operating “a two-tier refugee response” - one for Ukrainians and one for all other refugees according to a new briefing by the Greek Council for Refugees, Oxfam and Save the Children. 

New report from the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) and Oxfam sheds light on the inside of the new 43-million-euro migration center on the Greek island of Samos. The report comes ahead of the 6-year anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal, and in the midst of already more than a million people fleeing conflict in Ukraine to seek asylum in EU countries. If ever there was a time to learn from the failures made in Greece, it is now.

Greece is turning more and more to the practice of administrative detention to manage people who arrive in Greece to claim asylum. This is according to the new report, Detention as the Default: How Greece, with the support of the EU, is generalizing administrative detention of migrants, from the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) and Oxfam. The report found an excessive use of administrative detention with nearly 3,000 migrants in detention as of June 2021.

Since 2017, there has been an increase in reported pushbacks ranging in the hundreds to the thousands. Despite increased international pressure and outrage, alleged pushbacks continue to persist. They are systematic, and those who speak out against them are criminalised. The latest issue of the Lesbos Bulletin by the Greek Council for Refugees and Oxfam looks at this practice and includes a pushback testimony.  

Five years ago, today, European leaders announced the EU-Turkey deal. Every single day since then, families have been trapped in ‘hotspots’ on the Greek islands, their lives put on hold.  

The EU and Greece created these ‘hotspots’ following the EU-Turkey deal. The EU’s aim to keep asylum-seekers on the Greek islands was to speed up their return to Turkey has resulted in appalling living conditions, violent border control practices and immense delays in asylum procedures. Despite overwhelming evidence of these failed policies, the EU migration pact seeks to copy this approach. 

Since January 2015 more than 1 million women, men and children fleeing war, persecution, natural disaster and poverty entered or passed through Greece in search of safety and a better life in Europe. We are working in Lesbos island, one of the main entry points to Europe, responding to the urgent needs of people arriving. 

This month, the European Court of Human Rights' (ECtHR) issued a seismic ruling in the case of A.R.E. v. Greece, condemning, for the first time ever, Greece for its “systematic practice of pushbacks”. This landmark verdict exposes not only Greece’s, but also Europe’s failure to handle migration fairly at its borders.

The case in question centres on A.R.E., a woman who entered Greece to seek asylum in 2019. Instead of examining her asylum application as required by international and European law, the Greek authorities forcibly returned her to Turkey after holding her in a police station where her phone, shoes, and money were taken from her. 

EU leaders will meet this week to discuss Europe’s response to migration. Ahead of this, Stephanie Pope, Oxfam EU migration expert said “The latest proposal attempts to bully non-EU countries into doing its work and following Europe’s narrow-minded political objectives. EU countries must create a migration policy that works for people, not one built on blackmail, forced returns and fences.”