EU ‘should expect another 1m this year’
A MILLION more migrants will arrive in Europe this year, with increasing numbers from Asia and Africa who are not fleeing war, the UN warned yesterday.
A joint report by refugee agencies said the conflict in Syria will continue to be a source of refugees seeking asylum in the EU.
But an increasing number of economic migrants will also come from south-west Asia, as well as northern and western Africa, helping to fuel Europe’s worst migration crisis since the Second World War.
‘ Continued arrivals will most likely put strain on affected communities and their willingness to accept refugees and migrants,’ said the report compiled by the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organisation for Migration and 65 other groups.
The warning came as Greece was told it could be sealed off from the rest of the continent within three months, after the European Commission (EC) found it ‘seriously neglected’ its borders last year.
A snap investigation concluded that Greece was failing to screen those arriving on its islands and simply waving them through to travel elsewhere in Europe.
The Commission said Greece could be suspended from the EU’s border-free travel area, Schengen, for its failure to control the num-
bers coming in. EC vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said: ‘Greece is seriously neglecting its obligations. There are serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border controls that must be overcome and dealt with by the Greek authorities.’
In an unannounced visit to the Greek islands Chios and Samos in November, inspectors found arrivals were not being checked.
At least two of the terrorists who took part in the Paris attacks came through the Greek island of Leros, posing as Syrian refugees.
Mr Dombrovskis added: ‘Whilst acknowledging that the Greek authorities are under pressure, the report notably finds that there is no effective identification and registration of irregular migrants and that fingerprints are not being systematically entered into the system.
‘ Travel documents are not being systematically checked for authenticity or against crucial security databases.’
The EU has already started sending guards to Macedonia to patrol its border with Greece, helping to stop migrants continuing their journeys through to other European countries.
Once the commission’s report is endorsed by a majority of EU member states, Greece will be given three months to take ‘remedial action’ or face losing its place in the travel zone.
EU officials this week began taking steps that could lead to border checks being brought back between Schengen countries for up to two years.
Greece is supposed to be setting up migrant processing centres on its islands to screen arrivals, but so far it has managed to open only one, on Lesbos.
According to EU figures, only 121,325 of the 492,744 migrants who arrived in Greece from July 20 to November 30 last year were fingerprinted.
Despite the wintry conditions, the numbers of migrants reaching the Greek islands is still vast – and around 30 times higher than this time last year. An EU source said 4,000 had arrived in Greece on Friday alone.