Concern in Greece about German border checks

Germany's decision to reintroduce border checks to control irregular migration has been criticized by the media and politicians in Greece.

Several newspaper commentators have labeled the decision "anti-European" and called it evidence of the German government's capitulation to the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

In addition, there is a growing fear in Athens of a domino effect within the European Union should other member states follow Germany's lead. This rising concern has been evident on the front pages of several Greek newspapers in recent weeks.

"Closed borders, open wounds" was the headline on the front page of the liberal Sunday newspaper To Vima on September 15, the day before the border checks started. The next day, the pro-government Apogevmatini wrote "Code Red" and warned of an "influx of migrants after Germany closes the border."

Will Germany send migrants back?

The Greek government fears Germany might reject migrants who sought asylum in Greece before traveling to Germany and send them back to Greece.

The daily newspaper KONTRA said: "Scholz is pushing for the return of 30,000 Afghans to Greece and is offering us €15,000 ($16,600) for each immigrant."

While the Migration Ministry in Athens did not confirm this claim, the denials have been faint and lukewarm.

After all, it suits the conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis for the subject of migration to be back in the headlines right now — not because of Greek politics, but because of a decision taken by the German government. It means that the really pressing problems of Greek citizens are no longer in the spotlight.

According to an opinion poll conducted by market research institute Pulse for SKAI TV, migrants and refugees are not top of Greek voters' list of concerns. The poll showed that 34.5% of those surveyed considered the high cost of living to be the most important issue, 18% were worried about low wages, small pensions and rising rents, while 15% said the economy was the key concern — all subjects that are part of the government's remit.

No refugee crisis in Greece

Only 5% of the population sees migration as the main problem, and in the eyes of both the media and the government, the blame for migration lies elsewhere: war, poverty, smugglers, the liberal left, Turkey (when it "opens the floodgates") and Germany (which "acts as a magnet with its generous welfare state benefits").

But it would be wrong to speak of a migrant crisis in Greece at the moment: from January to mid-September 2024, only about 36,000 arrivals were registered in Greece. Most of these migrants come from Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt and the Palestinian territories.

This is a far cry from the approximately 860,000 registered arrivals by land and sea in 2015 and the almost 200,000 migrants that arrived in the following year. Most of these migrants were fleeing the war in Syria.

In 2015 and 2016 alone, over two million refugees fled to the European Union. The countries most affected by the influx were the countries bordering the Mediterranean and the countries along the Balkan route, which starts in Turkey and winds up through the Balkans through either Bulgaria or Greece.

Germany took in hundreds of thousands of refugees in the summer and fall of 2015, most of whom came from Syria.

Greece cannot bear a 'disproportionately high load'

Athens is of the opinion that Chancellor Scholz's decision to reintroduce border controls was an ill-considered overreaction to the rise of the extreme right in Germany and is doing permanent damage to European treaties such as the Schengen Agreement.

Greek PM Mitsotakis is convinced that Greece has already done more than enough when it comes to migration, saying that his country is protecting the EU's external borders with strict controls in the Aegean and a fence on the Greek-Turkish border. Greece has also set up large reception centers for migrants on several of its islands.

Mitsotakis has made it clear that Greece cannot bear a disproportionately high load when it comes to migration. During a visit to Austria on September 11, Mitsotakis said that Greece cannot be expected to have "a more attractive welfare state for refugees than for its own Greek citizens."

Germany's reaction is 'short-sighted'

Maria Gavounelli, director of the Greek think tank ELIAMEP, considers the German reintroduction of border controls "short-sighted." She is convinced that not only does the decision not solve the problem, it also poses a threat to European unity.

Gavounelli says that she fervently hopes that Germany is not considering terminating the Schengen Agreement because "that would blow up our European house."

Most experts assume that Germany's border checks cannot stop what is known as the secondary movement of migrants from Greece, in other words the flow of migrants who arrived in the EU in Greece but seek protection or permanent resettlement elsewhere.

Over the last three years, about 75,000 people who applied for asylum in Greece traveled on to Germany. Since 2021, several German courts have ruled that those who have been recognized as being in need of protection cannot be returned to Greece because they run the risk of not having their most basic needs met there.

Asylum seekers in Greece have to live in enclosed camps and are not allowed to work. Refugees who have been granted asylum are allowed to work, but do not receive any assistance from the state in the form of social security, housing benefits, child benefit etc. However, this applies to most Greek citizens too.

Recognized asylum seekers, on the other hand, are allowed to leave Greece and are permitted to travel freely to other EU Member States for three months of the year.

Most refugees and migrants who arrive in Greece want to move on to northern Europe, to the UK, Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, where they have relatives and friends — and prospects for the future.

Is Germany undermining European integration?

Back in the summer of 2015, when over a million people moved north along the Balkan route, people in Greece cheered Germany's then chancellor, Angela Merkel, for taking in Syrian refugees. She was seen as thoughtful and humane, in sharp contrast to her tough stance during the Greek sovereign debt crisis.

The policy of the Scholz government, on the other hand, has come in for major criticism.

Political scientist Prof. Panayiotis Ioakimidis says that "Scholz's progressive government has adopted the extreme right's immigration policy in the hope of countering the rise of the AfD. In France and in the Netherlands, they tried something similar, but instead of stopping the rise of the extreme right wing, it did the opposite: it accelerated it."

Ioakimidis is one of Greece's most renowned experts on Europe and has advised several Greek governments since the 1990s.

He is convinced that while Berlin's decision to reintroduce border checks for six months along its 3,700-km (2,300-mile) border is legal in accordance with EU law, it undermines European integration.

This article was originally published in German.