Greece in dark over migrant deal
EU urged to provide details on how new arrivals will be processed and sent to Turkey
ATHENS— Government officials in Greece signalled Saturday that implementation of a migration agreement between the European Union and Turkey could only occur gradually, with key details still to be worked out on how migrants newly arriving from Turkey will be processed and returned.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met ministers and senior officials involved in the migration crisis, hours after the deal was reached in Brussels to send back migrants arriving on the Greek islands to Turkey, starting Sunday.
Hours before that implementation was due to start, it remained unclear how migrants would be sent back. Greek officials had previously suggested that the European border protection agency Frontex could escort chartered private vessels back to Turkey.
Yiannis Balafas, the deputy interior minister, said swift screening procedures in the Greek islands would require additional staff promised by the European Union.
“(Migrants) will be returned after they have been swiftly processed. That is why we need the technical assistance,” Balafas told Mega, a private television network.
In central Athens, several thousand migrants and protesters staged protest rallies against the EU-Turkey deal. Afghan migrants marched to the EU commission building in the centre of the capital, chanting “Open the borders” and “We are human.”
The rallies ended peacefully. Protests were also held in other parts of Greece, including Thessaloniki in northern Greece and on the island of Lesbos.
Several thousand people gathered in Spain’s northeastern port city of Barcelona to protest against what they called Europe’s “racist and uncaring” approach to migrants.
Greece is expecting about 2,300 European experts, including migration officers and interpreters, to help implement the deal.
“Obviously, none of those people have arrived yet,” a government official told The Associated Press, asking to not be identified pending official announcements.
“What we have at the moment is a political decision. This must now be put into practice.”
Migrants on Lesbos and other islands in the east Aegean Sea were being taken by ferry to the mainland ports of Piraeus and Kavala where they will be placed in shelters and be eligible for an EU-wide relocation program.
“Migrants on the islands will be moved to mainland shelters, including 2,500 people on Lesbos who are being transported to three different shelter locations,” the government officials said.
From Sunday onward, migrants who arrive on the islands will be screened and their identity recorded before being sent back to Turkey.
Germany’s interior minister said the Balkan route that migrants have been using to reach Central Europe is “finished” now that Turkey has agreed to take back people who arrive in Greece illegally.
In a statement Saturday, Thomas de Maizière described the deal between the European Union and Turkey as a “turning point in the refugee crisis.”
De Maizière said Germany will send border police and immigration staff to help Greece process any new arrivals.
His ministry said the number of migrants reaching Germany each day is now down to about 100 a day, a sharp decrease from the thousands who were arriving in the country daily last year.
De Maizière, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats, said “alternative flight routes must be prevented.”
At the Greek-Macedonian border Saturday, no new arrivals were re- ported by relief agencies at a giant makeshift camp near the border village of Idomeni.
Migrants took advantage of a break in bad weather to wash clothes and seek information on the EU-Turkey deal — responding with a mixture of relief and disappointment, with Balkan borders to remain closed but with most migrants already on Greek territory made exempt from plans for swift deportation. Mohamed Tamer spent three weeks camped out at Idomeni, hoping to travel on to Berlin where his sister lives.
On Saturday, he decided it was time to leave.
“I will try and apply with the EU relocation service,” he told The Associated Press before boarding a bus for Athens.
“The decision made in Brussels is not clear. What will happen to us? No one cares,” he said.
“(EU leaders) should have come here and spent one night in Idomeni before making up their minds.”