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A Croatian intervention policeman beats refugees
Photo: DER SPIEGEL / Lighthouse Reports
After the revelations by SPIEGEL and other media partners about the systematic mistreatment of refugees at the EU's external borders, Europe's social democrats are pushing for treaty infringement proceedings against Greece, Croatia and Poland.
This emerges from a letter from the social democratic group in the EU Parliament to the EU Commission.
In the letter, the Social Democrats call on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to initiate the infringement procedure. In addition, the Social Democrats want to cut all EU funds from the states concerned that were intended for migration management. The EU funds should therefore only flow again as soon as "the Commission has sufficient evidence that pushbacks are no longer being carried out".
"The reports in SPIEGEL show a frightening picture of the state of human rights at our external borders," said the social democratic MEP Birgit Sippel, one of the signatories of the letter.
“These violent pushbacks are not isolated cases, as some Member States would have us believe.
Rather, I see it as a systematic attack on the right to asylum and the Geneva Refugee Convention. «The EU must resist this vehemently.
"That is why we are calling for infringement proceedings against the participating member states and for stopping the use of EU funds at the affected external borders."
Beaten up, deported, exposed at sea
Together with other media, DER SPIEGEL spent months researching the EU's external borders in Greece and Croatia.
The research showed for the first time that the Croatian intervention police and special units of the Greek coast guard systematically abuse asylum seekers and force them back in clandestine operations so that they cannot apply for asylum.
In Greece, the special forces deploy asylum seekers on the Aegean Sea in Turkish waters - in shaky orange life rafts.
The illegal actions are often recorded on videos.
Three former or active Coast Guard officers report that the elite units MYA and KEA were involved in the pushbacks.
The orders for this come from the highest political level.
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In Croatia, the researchers filmed eleven so-called illegal pushbacks on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A video shows how masked intervention police beat refugees and migrants with batons and drive them back through the border river to Bosnia.
The victims of the abuse do not have the opportunity to apply for asylum.
According to the research, the work of the state units in Croatia and Greece is also financed by EU funds.
Even the life rafts on which asylum seekers are released were partly paid for by European taxpayers' money.
In the past few years, Brussels transferred more than 422 million euros to Athens for border protection alone, and more than 110 million euros to Zagreb.
Croatian Interior Ministry suspends police officers
After the research was published, the Croatian Ministry of the Interior admitted that the masked men who beat up were intervention police officers, and three officers were suspended.
A pushback system, as research suggests, denies it.
The Greek migration minister tweeted a blanket denial and assured that all allegations of this kind would be fundamentally investigated.
The Greek government did not respond to a detailed list of questions from SPIEGEL.
In their letter, the Social Democrats also demand measures against Poland.
The Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has been pushing those seeking protection west for weeks in order to put the EU under pressure.
The Polish parliament then legalized the illegal pushbacks under EU law.
Neither Greece nor Croatia have gone that far.
The EU Commissioner responsible, Ylva Johansson, said she was "shocked" by the reports.
Croatia and Greece should investigate the allegations.
Johansson has not yet spoken of any infringement proceedings.
However, it is already holding back around 15 million euros in EU funds.
If possible, she would only like to pay this out as soon as Greece introduces a so-called independent monitoring mechanism.
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