Keystone
Greece is pushing ahead with the creation of repatriation centers for rejected asylum seekers in third countries outside the EU.
These should “ideally be set up in African countries that would be willing to accept rejected asylum seekers”, said Migration Minister Thanos Plevris on Greek television (ERT).
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt stated in January that Germany had reached agreements for such return centers in a working group with Greece, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands. Together, a roadmap was to be drawn up with which third countries “innovative models” could be developed. Plevris also named these partner countries in the EU.
At European level, the collected EU states want to create the legal basis for being able to set up return centers in third countries.
Effect on potential migrants
The aim is to accommodate people whose asylum applications are rejected and who cannot be returned to their countries of origin in these centers, said the Greek minister. He emphasized that even the prospect of being returned to such a third country could have a deterrent effect on potential migrants. He announced that the concept would be further developed in the coming months in coordination with European return legislation.
At the same time, the Greek migration minister admitted that the fundamental problem for his country was still the low number of actual returns. Greece returns between 5,000 and 7,000 migrants per year – a figure that is considered insufficient in view of the more than 40,000 migrants arriving each year.