Dombrovskis said Greece was not identifying or registering people arriving effectively, not uploading fingerprinting data to relevant bases systematically, and not checking travel documents properly and against key databases.
Advertisement
“Greece seriously neglected its obligations and that there are serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border control that must be overcome…by the Greek authorities”, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a news briefing.
“If we want to maintain our internal area of free movement, we must better manage our external borders”, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commission’s migration and home affairs commissioner, said in a statement.
Greece will then have three months to correct the deficiencies and comply with the Schengen rules.
The introduction of the temporary border checks has raised fears that the passport-free Schengen zone, a symbol of European unity, freedom and prosperity, could collapse.
Some ministers made clear such a – theoretically temporary – move would cut off Greece, where more than 40,000 people have arrived by sea from Turkey this year, despite a deal with Ankara two months ago to hold back an exodus of Syrian refugees.
The report drew on visits to the land border between Greece and Turkey and to the Greek islands of Chios and Samos in mid-November.
Greece has registered just a quarter of the almost half a million migrants that passed through the country between July and November en route to Germany and Sweden. The EU is expected to agree details of the new guard only in June.
However, police spokesman Stefan Petersen said Wednesday that so far authorities hadn’t even been able to locate a body to examine.
Asselborn, however, remained confident that the open-border principles of the Schengen treaty would survive the crisis. And the timing is crucial. It leaves them with the option of toughening Europe’s welcome and hardening Europe’s borders to migrants and refugees.
That experience is part and parcel of lifesaving efforts in the Mediterranean these days as the conflict in Syria and poverty in North Africa drive more and more families to try to reach European Union soil.
They took the step to deal with a huge wave of migrants moving mostly from Greece towards Germany and Sweden, the main destination for refugees and migrants in Europe.
The unprecedented move to sanction Greece is being combined with national governments acting to extend and prolong national border controls for up to two years, dealing a potentially terminal blow to the Schengen regime which has been in effect for more than 20 years and is generally viewed as one of the EU’s biggest and most popular achievements.
Meanwhile the European Union is said to be considering helping Macedonia, which is not a member of the European Union or Schengen, to tighten security at its border with Greece.
If the idea is approved, it will seal off Greece and exclude it from the lifting of the Schengen agreement, which has infuriated the Greek migration minister. He has warned that sealing Greece off from Schengen would create a humanitarian crisis with thousands of people trapped in the country.
Advertisement
However, Belgian Migration Minister Theo Francken condemned the claims, calling them “grotesque and very regrettable”.
