greece refugees

The EU Commission confirmed that Greece is rejecting 308 irregular migrants in Turkey. The European Union is in fact intensifying its efforts to ensure that those who did not qualify for international protection in Europe are rapidly and actually driven back to their countries of origin or sent back to the countries of transit.

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[level-european-affairs]

The Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said: “Under the EU-Turkey joint action plan we agreed to accelerate return and readmission procedures with Turkey. The European Commission has reinforced its support for cooperation on return between EU Member States and Turkey and today’s transfers of returnees from Greece to Turkey show that our efforts are starting to bear fruit. If we want to address the challenges of the refugee crisis successfully we need to get back to an orderly management of the migration flows: We have to make sure that those who are in need of protection will receive it, but it has to be clear as well that those who have no right to stay in the EU will be quickly and effectively returned“.

According to the Commission, to ensure that the European Common Asylum System will work, it is essential that the return policy is fully functioning. While fully respecting fundamental rights and the principle of reception, repatriation to countries of origin or to transit countries by irregular migrants who are not entitled to remain in the EU constitutes an essential part of overall efforts of EU to address the phenomenon of migration and, in particular, to reduce the regular immigration.

It is for this reason that the strengthening of cooperation on refoulement with Turkey is considered today as one of the main priorities of the European Commission. As part of the Joint Action Plan EU-Turkey, activated on November 29, the EU and Turkey have pledged to strengthen cooperation in the field of migration management – including the prevention of irregular migration flows towards EU – and in order to speed up the procedures for denial of entry of illegal immigrants, in line with the provisions specifically designed.

So yesterday and today, the return of illegal immigrants, mostly from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia started.

A clear and unequivocal signal to those who know in advance to be not entitled to international protection.

Domenico Martinelli

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