The Greek crisis threatens the protection of refugees

PRO ASYL demands soli­da­ri­ty with Greece ins­tead of shif­ting responsibility

Given its eco­no­mic cri­sis, PRO ASYL appeals to the Ger­man Fede­ral Govern­ment to show soli­da­ri­ty towards Greece. The brunt of the dra­ma­tic eco­no­mic situa­ti­on should not be bor­ne by the wea­k­est mem­bers of Greek socie­ty such as pro­tec­tion seekers.

Wit­hout exten­si­ve sup­port through Euro­pean funds and mea­su­res of soli­da­ri­ty by the Euro­pean Uni­on’s Mem­ber Sta­tes, it will be impos­si­ble for the new Greek govern­ment to set up a new ade­qua­te asyl­um- and recep­ti­on system.

Greece curr­ent­ly lacks an asyl­um sys­tem altog­e­ther, lea­ving thou­sands of asyl­um see­kers wit­hout shel­ter and sup­port. For unac­com­pa­nied minors see­king pro­tec­tion the­re are just 405 places in accom­mo­da­ti­ons sui­ta­ble for child­ren. Over the last two years howe­ver, more than 10.000 sepa­ra­ted child­ren, most of them from Afgha­ni­stan, were stran­ded on the shores of Les­bos and else­whe­re in Greece.

The­se kids are refu­gee child­ren of Euro­pe. It will need a joint Euro­pean effort in order to pro­tect the­se par­ti­cu­lar­ly vul­nerable indi­vi­du­als from desti­tu­ti­on and homelessness.

„We may not lea­ve Greece alo­ne and we must no lon­ger igno­re the plight of the­se refu­gee kids”, says Karl Kopp, Euro­pean Repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of PRO ASYL.

Soli­da­ri­ty with Greece now means:

For vul­nerable sepa­ra­ted child­ren a huma­ni­ta­ri­an solu­ti­on must be found in a quick and unbu­reau­cra­tic way. Within the frame­work of a EU action plan, the­se child­ren should be relo­ca­ted to other EU mem­ber sta­tes short­ly, ensu­ring the best inte­rest of the child.

Trans­fers of asyl­um see­kers back to Greece should be suspended.

A fair sys­tem of respon­si­bi­li­ty sha­ring con­cer­ning asyl­um see­kers in Euro­pe must be dis­cus­sed wit­hout any ideo­lo­gi­cal red tape. Accor­ding to the Ger­man Minis­try of the Inte­ri­or, more than eight per­cent of all asyl­um see­kers in Ger­ma­ny in 2009 shall com­ple­te their asyl­um pro­ce­du­re in Greece. 1.855 requests to take char­ge or take back were sent to Athens by the com­pe­tent Ger­man aut­ho­ri­ty in the first ten months of 2009 alone.

The­se figu­res in them­sel­ves show that the exis­ting Euro­pean sys­tem for deter­mi­ning respon­si­bi­li­ty for an asyl­um appli­ca­ti­on is unjust and unfair.

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