There is truth in Greece’s open borders warning
Jonathan Lindsell, 7 April 2015
The stability of the Greek state’s finances remains vulnerable this week, as Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis confirmed repayment of €430m (£330m) to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday, narrowly avoiding default and bankruptcy once again. However, this commitment came with the warning that payment means Greek civil servants’ wages and pensions were not covered, with little immediate prospect for new loans.
Greece’s Defence Minister, Panos Kammenos, told The Times that EU pressure to repay loans was ‘gross meddling into [Greek] domestic affairs’, setting the coalition members against each other. He feared that that by destabilising Greece, ‘waves of undocumented migrants, including radical elements, will spill in from Turkey’, specifically naming Isis. Kammenos, who is the leader of the right-wing junior coalition party ANEL, is a strong critic of immigration and multiculturalism.
The question, then, is whether Kammenos’ remark was a threat or a statement of fact. While the senior coalition party, Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza, seeks to integrate asylum seekers and close his country’s many internment camps, Kammenos has no apparent motive to stop manning Greece’s sprawling land and sea borders.
On the one hand, it seems cold to use asylum seekers as pawns in negotiations with Brussels. On the other, due to the Schengen passport-free area, Greek migrants are EU migrants. Given the rise of Pegida around Germany, the Front National and the Sweden Democrats, there is clearly growing concern over European immigration, but little appetite for EU interior countries to contribute to the infrastructure of those on the border. Italy was forced to abandon its ‘Mare Nostrum’ programme, which rescued over 100,000 incomers in the Mediterranean. Greece, meanwhile, is forced to cut back the state further and further while being expected to deal with increasing numbers of north Africans and Syrians, primarily from Turkey.
In March, Kammenos made the unprecedented threat to actually suspend Greek compliance with the EU treaties and simply grant all economic migrant applicants papers so they ‘could go straight to Berlin’. Syriza Immigration Minister Tasia Christodoulopoulou distanced her party rejected Kammenos’ use of asylum seekers as a negotiation tool. Nevertheless, Christodoulopoulou echoed Kammenos’ concerns in more conciliatory language, highlighting her desire to swiftly process backlogs in Greek processing camps, which have been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for unsanitary conditions and applicant mistreatment.
A Greek news site reported that 500,000 additional asylum seekers are poised at the Greek-Turkish borders, just as the border force was cut by 30%. Yanis Varoufakis is now in America, trying to raise support for Greece remaining stable in the eurozone – but this is far from assured.
As matters stand, Kammenos’ threat to actually grant papers to facilitate mass EU migration is very improbable, especially concerning Isis militants. However, Christodoulopoulou’s concerns that her ministry is under too much pressure presents a genuine worry that holes may appear. Already, 400 migrants cross the ‘sea border’ into the islands daily. UNHCR noted 60,000 asylum seekers and refugees in processing centres in July 2014. Greece is surely straining.