It was a long night in the Athens parliament: After a debate lasting more than 14 hours, the members of parliament decided on Friday morning by a large majority to tighten up the asylum law.
The aim of the Conservative government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is to accelerate asylum procedures and to send applicants back to Turkey faster under the Refugee Pact. In addition, by the end of the year, around 20,000 asylum seekers will be brought from the congested Greek islands to the mainland.
The Greek asylum system has long been paralyzed, said Mitsotakis in his speech in parliament. It spread the message, everyone could stay in Greece. In future, among other things, "every application should be examined after six months instead of nine months". If the applicant does not cooperate with the authorities, the application is automatically declared unfounded.
Mitsotakis also appealed again to the EU Member States: "It can not be that a country uses the free movement of the EU and at the same time refuses to share even the smallest migration burden." European solidarity does not exist à la carte.
EU report: Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic should have taken refugees
The behavior of some countries - including Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic - has long been criticized and has been a source of controversy within the EU for years. Eleanor Sharpston, Advocate General for the European Court of Justice (ECJ), sees the behavior of the three Eastern European countries as a violation of EU law. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic had shown a lack of solidarity in the refugee crisis and, from Sharpston's point of view, could not refuse to implement a decision to redistribute Syrian and other asylum seekers from Greece and Italy.
The opposition, as well as aid and humanitarian organizations, had criticized the tightening of the law in advance: it undermined the right of seekers to a comprehensive examination of their asylum application.
Almost 35,000 migrants are currently waiting for them on the islands of the Eastern Aegean. This is the highest number since the entry into force of the EU-Turkey Refugee Pact in March 2016. Capacity is limited to around 7000 people; the migrants live in inhumane conditions.
