EUROPE

Greece, and specifically its southern border, is unique. From one side comes migrants and refugees fleeing violence, war, persecution, and economic insecurity – desperate to reach the easternmost flank of the EU and claim asylum. From the other come tourists the world over, seeking the sun, islands, and long beaches which adorn the country’s southern shores. The duality of such a place, what it means to different groups and what they will each pay to reach it is a reflection of a large problem. Indeed, that some may look out into the Mediterranean in comfort while others must survive just long enough to escape it is telling of the state of implementation of human rights in Greece today.

Greece is an EU member state, and one of the main routes into the bloc for migrants and refugees, specifically those fleeing the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. As a result of its EU-status, it faces pressure on two fronts. First, there exists intense civil society and mild political pressure to center and protect human rights in dealing with migrant arrivals. On the second, there is powerful bloc pressure to limit the number of arrivals in the EU, and keep as many migrants in Greece, or out of the EU entirely, as is legally possible. This is most recently codified in the European Union’s initial migration pact agreement of early June 2023, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive deal set to be finalized by 2024.

In the domestic sphere, Greece is leaning ever more right on migration, wanting to offload their “burden” of the intake, registration, and management of incoming migrants and refugees. Empathy, compassion, and an open arms approach has been replaced with suspicion, resentment, and frustration around migrants and refugees arriving at Greece’s borders. This has manifested in the reelection and strengthening of a conservative Greek coalition led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis in mid-June 2023.

The result of regional and domestic trajectories of ever stricter and less humanitarian-centered migration approaches has had and continues to bear serious consequences. Consequences measured in human lives. June 14th saw the shipwreck of a boat overfilled with hundreds of migrants seeking asylum in the European Union –but most would never get the chance, tragically perishing in the Mediterranean Sea as the boat capsized, killing the majority on board.

The de-facto criminalization of migrants in EU migration law, domestic apathy, if not disdain, for the plight of migrants among right-wing groups in Europe, and negative side-effects of the current system, including stronger incentives for traffickers and human smugglers to exploit and operate in the shadows of these policies, all directly contribute to catastrophes like the most recent shipwreck – and assuming a continuation of current perspectives, approaches, and conditions – the problem can only become worse.

The Shipwreck

The Mediterranean Sea has become in the past two decades a mass graveyard in the sea – the final resting place for thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing war, violence, persecution, and more who were willing to take a dangerous journey across the sea, and who had to pay for such courage with their own lives. An entire industry now exists which transports those able to pay to the frontiers of the European Union, where nothing is guaranteed but the mere hope that they might be able to claim asylum. The industry, run by human traffickers and human smugglers, is unregulated and operates in the shadows, and thus, has full reign to exploit, endanger, and trick the most vulnerable people to turn a profit. Many of those who pay for their services must sell or leave behind everything they own and have no means of recourse once they reach holding centers awaiting their boat or opportunity to fly to a border country – most commonly Greece or Italy.

It was through this exploitative system that around 750 people found themselves crammed onto a large boat on the Western coast of Libya, stripped of its lifeboats, life jackets, and anything else which could be removed in order fit more people on the boat. Just under half of all those on board were Pakistani, with the rest from a myriad of countries in the Middle East North Africa (MENA+) region. According to initial reports, the cost of the journey reached in some cases USD 8,000, wherein they would fly legally into Dubai, Cairo, or Libya and then be transported by human smugglers across the Mediterranean.

Shipwreck

“On June 14th, a boat with 750 people onboard, coming from Libya, was in distress in the Greek SAR zone. The boat sank killing around 80 people and leaving several hundred missing people.” (6)
“Greece is one of the main routes into the European Union for refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.” (13)
“Passengers were also adamant about getting to Italy, which borders visa-free EU member states permitting safe passage, rather than Greece, circled by Balkan states that are taking an increasingly tough line on migration, they said.” (14)
“Advocacy group Alarm Phone, which operates a trans-European network supporting rescue operations, said it received its first call from the boat just after 1200 GMT on June 13 to say the vessel was in distress. The person they communicated with said “they cannot survive the night”. (14)
“But in repeated communication with the boat, from 1330 to 1800 GMT Greek authorities say people on the vessel told them they wanted to sail to Italy and wanted no assistance from Greece.” (14)
“Greek officials say they were faced with a dilemma on what to do with a vessel that had repeatedly declined offers of assistance, worried that even the slightest shift could unbalance the boat.” (14)
“When the boat reported engine failure and stalled, a coastguard vessel shadowing them came closer. In just under 25 minutes, coastguard witnesses saw the boat tilt sharply right to left. In 10 to 15 minutes, the boat was gone.” (14)
“The precise number of victims might never be known. The waters in which the boat sank are some of the deepest in the Mediterranean, where depths can exceed 5 km.”
Italy did alert Greece about this ship ahead of time (12)
“On 26 June, Frontex stated that the Greek authorities had refused the support of a reconnaissance aircraft to monitor the progress of the ship on 13 June. The Greek coastguard is accused of only intervening when the ship was beginning to sink after capsizing.” (6)
“On 27 June, InfoMigrants counted 82 dead and several hundred missing.” (6)
“The Greek authorities had been aware of the overloaded vessel the day before because Europe’s border agency Frontex and activists had warned them.” (2)
“Instead of rescuing the people, the Greek coast guard stayed close to the boat and observed it from the sky with a helicopter, ignoring Frontex’s offer for help. They sent commercial vessels to the area and later a coast guard boat.” (2)
“Shortly after the coast guard vessel arrived on the scene, the overloaded boat capsized. Only 104 men survived. All the others, including all the women and children on board, drowned.” (2)
“Survivors alleged that their vessel was towed by the Greek coast guard boat, causing the fatal wreck. The Greek coast guard and the government strongly denied these allegations and claimed the boat was never towed.” (2)
“Documents and witness testimony obtained by Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, Monitor, SIRAJ, El País, Reporters United and The Times show the Greek coast guard tampered with official statements to conceal their role in the wreck and pressured survivors into naming certain people as the smugglers.” (2)
“The coast guard had omitted the parts of their testimony mentioning towing. “They asked me what happened to the boat and how it sank. I told them the Greek coast guard came and tied the rope to our boat and towed us and caused the capsizing of the boat,” said one survivor. “They didn’t type that in my testimony. When they presented it at the end, I couldn’t find this part.” He added that the coast guard pressured him to single out certain people as the smugglers in charge of the operation. This claim is supported by our analysis of the documents: two answers to the coast guard’s questions about smugglers contain identical sentences. Another survivor who testified said he also blamed the shipwreck on towing when asked by the coast guard, but still signed the deposition at the end despite knowing it did not reflect what he said, because he felt “terrified”.” (2)
“Sixteen out of the seventeen survivors we spoke to said the coast guard attached a rope to the vessel and tried to tow it shortly before it capsized. Four also claimed that the coast guard was attempting to tow the boat to Italian waters, while four reported that the coast guard caused more deaths by circling around the boat after it capsized, making waves that caused the boat’s carcass to sink. While Europe and its border agency Frontex have largely backed Greece on its border practices and said following the shipwreck that they believed the coast guard did everything it could to save the people who drowned, Frontex is now doubting the official version. The border agency has circulated an internal report on the incident based on survivor testimony, in which survivors state that the Greek coast guard was to blame for the drownings, according to sources.” (2)
“A disastrous coastguard towing attempt was recounted in six of the nine statements from survivors submitted to Greek judicial officials investigating the causes of the tragedy, according to evidence seen by Reuters. One Syrian survivor said he and other migrants on board the Adriana, which had broken down en route to Italy, screamed “Stop!” after a Greek coastguard vessel attached a rope to the bow of the trawler and began to pull it while picking up speed.” (8)
“The statements of the six witnesses clash with the public statements given by the Greek coastguard and government, which have said no attempt was made to tow the boat and that it overturned when the coastguard was about 70 metres away.” (8)
“ISLAMABAD, June 23 (Reuters) – At least 350 Pakistanis were on an overloaded boat that capsized and sank in open seas off Greece last week, Pakistan’s Interior Minister said on Friday, promising to arrest and prosecute the human smugglers responsible. … Pakistan’s economic meltdown in recent months has spurred more people to risk their lives to reach Europe in search of a better future. … Pakistan said it has arrested several human traffickers and their agents who told authorities that their ring leader was based in Libya. … These human smugglers had charged around $8,000 a person to take them to Europe illegally through the sea route after flying legally to Dubai, Egypt and Libya, authorities said.” (10)

EU Migration Deal

“MADRID, June 15 (Reuters) – Spain expects to conclude the European Union’s migration deal under its presidency during the second half of this year and seek a closer cooperation with migrant origin countries, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday. … Spain takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency on July 1. … The deal aims to set a coordinated response to handling irregular arrivals of asylum-seekers and migrants, and would see each EU country assigned a share of the 30,000 people overall the bloc is expected to accommodate in its joint migration system at any given time. … A majority of the 27 EU member countries have already agreed on a deal despite the opposition of countries such as Poland and Hungary.” (15)
“Countries unwilling to take in people would instead be able to help their hosting peers through cash—at least 20,000 euros per person a year—equipment or personnel. … The agreement would introduce a new expedited border procedure for those deemed unlikely to win asylum to prevent them from lingering inside the bloc for years. … Instead, they should be sent away within six months if their asylum applications fails, one of several shortened deadlines in the deal. … That mechanism would apply to all those deemed dangerous, uncooperative or coming from countries with low asylum recognition rates in the EU like India or Serbia. … EU countries could also apply the speedy procedure to people picked up in the sea, caught while trying to get in illegally or filing for asylum at the border rather than in advance.” (17)
“Rights groups said the scheme risked reviving tragic scenes that unfolded on the Greek islands several years ago by creating more overcrowded migration camps on the edges of the EU … They said the new plan could lead to protracted detention of minors and criticised it as focusing on keeping people away rather than helping those in need.” (17)
“Agreed on June 8^th 2023 on a negotiating position on the New Pact on Migration on Asylum, initially presented in September 2020, with a political agreement reached on the asylum procedure regulation and the asylum and migration management regulation that will form the ground of further negotiations by the Council Presidency with the EU Parliament.” (3)
Poland and Hungary believe that “relocation and resettlement should be on a voluntary basis and that all forms of solidarity should be considered equally valid and not serve as a potential pull factor for irregular migration” (3)
“The European Union remains committed to breaking the business model of traffickers and smuggling networks, including instrumentalization, and to tackling the root causes of irregular migration so as to better address the flows of migrants and avoid that people embark on such perilous journeys.” (3)
The new asylum deal is includes: an asylum procedure regulation (APR), which “establishes a common procedure that Member States need to follow when people seek international protection in Europe, mainly on procedural arrangements (for example, clear rules for registering and lodging applications, and a time limit for the examination of applications and border procedures) and rules on the rights and duties of asylum seekers (e.g. access to legal assistance and interpretation, adequate support to individuals in need of special guarantees, rules on the right to stay and appeals, and an applicant’s duty to cooperate with the competent authorities).” (4)
“The APR introduces mandatory border procedures at the EU’s external borders, with the aim to assess quickly—i.e. within 12 to 16 weeks—whether applications are unfounded or inadmissible, and prevent the applicant from entering the State’s territory in the meantime. This stricter procedure is applicable to almost every asylum seeker, as it is triggered in each of these cases: following apprehension in connection with an illegal border crossing; following disembarkation after a search and rescue (SAR) operation; if a person has provided authorities with false information or withheld information; or has a nationality with a recognition rate below 20%.” (4)
“To carry out border procedures, Member States must establish “adequate capacity” in terms of reception and human resources required to examine an identified number of applications and enforce return decisions, based on the State’s share of irregular entries and disembarkations after SAR. The fact that this mechanism establishes an annual ceiling may cause a race to the bottom, with States declaring a lower “adequate capacity” in order to process fewer people in border procedures and trying to reduce the number of both arrivals and SAR disembarkations, possibly through more pushbacks.” (4)
“Asylum seekers would be transferred “to a specific location at or in proximity of the external border of the concerned Member State, or in other designated locations within its territory where appropriate facilities exist” prior to the examination of their application. The APR explicitly states that Member States should retain discretion in selecting the specific locations at which such facilities should be placed, and notify the European Commission of the exact locations, opening the additional possibility of using these spots to examine applications which are not subject to the border procedure. The question as to whether NGOs and civil society groups will be able to know the specific locations as well, to monitor the human rights situation and authorities’ compliance with legal obligations, remains unanswered.” (4)
“In line with hastening asylum procedures, the APR proposal foresees that if a person subsequently claims asylum “at the last minute merely in order to delay or frustrate his or her removal”, they should not be authorised to remain;” (4)
“a return decision can be issued as part of the rejection of the application for international protection” (4)
“The proposal also states that, when applying the border procedure, Member States may prioritise the examination of applications of certain third country nationals for which there is a high probability of return to their country of origin, a third country deemed safe by EU authorities, or a first country of asylum.” (4)
“The APR states that competent authorities should take biometric data upon the making or registration of an application for international protection and transmit the data in accordance with the regulation, adding that, if the person refuses to provide their biometric data, they should not be allowed to lodge an application.” (4)
“The asylum and migration management regulation (AMMR) should replace the current Dublin III regulation determining the Member State responsible for the examination of an asylum application, but the new proposal would likely effect minimal change—both in relation to the right to freedom of movement of migrants and asylum seekers, and to migratory pressure on frontline States in the Mediterranean region.” (4)
“The AMMR provides for an exchange of information between States relevant for the examination of an asylum application, also without the applicant’s consent.” (4)
“A new solidarity mechanism, the so-called “solidarity pool”, is being proposed to support the few Member States that are responsible for reviewing the vast majority of asylum applications—through individual contributions that include relocations of both asylum seekers and refugees recognised less than three years before, direct financial contributions, and deployment of resources or personnel.” (4)
“the EU’s desire to externalise its asylum obligations and prevent departures.” (4)

Greek Elections

“Across Europe, far-right parties have gained momentum thanks to the exploitation of topics that should not be political, like the right to asylum, and thanks to their restrictive anti-immigration policies. Refugees’ arrivals and the provision of basic goods and precarious shelters are maliciously depicted as kind gifts instead of legal obligations by right-wing politicians who aim at fueling tension to gain ground,” said Michela Pugliese, Migration and Asylum Researcher at the Euro-Med Monitor.” (1)
“On June 26, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the conservative New Democracy (ND) party, began his second term as Prime Minister of Greece. Known for his tough immigration policy, Mitsotakis once again lent his support to the coastguards after the Pylos shipwreck.” (6)
“Mitsotakis, 55, won 158 sets in the 300-seat parliament in a June 25 national election, securing a clear majority to push ahead with his plan in a country which emerged from a huge debt crisis five years ago.” (7)
“Mitsotakis, who was prime minister from 2019 until stepping down in favour of a caretaker premier following an inconclusive May vote, has vowed to push ahead with reforms to rebuild the country’s credit rating after the debt crisis that wracked the nation for a decade.” (9)

Tie-In Bits

“Migrants who manage to reach the EU border have been victims of push-backs and those who cross over into Greece are systematically detained on arrival, in inhuman and degrading conditions. The response of the European Union is to strengthen means of surveillance and interception. There is an urgent need to shift the focus away from criminalization to the conditions of reception of migrants.” (5) (From Euro-Med Rights Report)
“Analysts said a row over who was to blame for the shipwreck had likely slightly boosted Mitsotakis, who tore into his arch rival Tsipras for suggesting Greece didn’t do all that it could to prevent the disaster. (The debate) has helped New Democracy because Syriza’s first, instinctive reaction was to voice doubts over the coast guard (and its handling), while New Democracy appeared to be protecting the borders,” said Apostolos Pistolas, a voting behaviour analyst.” (11)
“The United Nations has recorded more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014, making it the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world.” (13)
“Nearly 3,800 people died on migration routes within and from the Middle East and North Africa last year, the highest number recorded there since 2017, according to data published earlier this month by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).” (13)