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Refugees on the Greek island of Moria (archive).
Photo: Petros Giannakouris / DPA
In the federal government, there is growing anger about the way Greece deals with refugees.
The background to this is the large number of people who have been traveling on to Germany for months, although they have already been recognized by the Greek authorities as entitled to protection.
According to SPIEGEL information, more than 300 refugees, mostly Afghan refugees, arrived at German airports with scheduled flights on the Easter weekend alone and immediately applied for asylum.
According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), around 2,900 men and women who had already been recognized in Greece submitted a new asylum application in Germany in the first three months of the year.
The Higher Administrative Court in Münster ruled in January that refugees are currently not allowed to be deported back to the country because they could not meet their most elementary needs ("bed, bread, soap") there.
In Greece they face "extreme material hardship" and homelessness, the court found that the corona pandemic had exacerbated the situation.
According to SPIEGEL information, asylum experts reported at an internal federal-state conference in March that the issue was "currently the most pressing problem" for the Federal Ministry of the Interior by Horst Seehofer (CSU).
If you do not solve it, "the entire European asylum system is in question," it said.
A further increase in so-called secondary migration from Greece must be prevented.
Berlin has therefore "communicated very clearly" to Athens that the Greek authorities are expected to "meet minimum standards" for refugees.
The European Commission is also examining an infringement procedure against Greece, reported the asylum experts.
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