Greece plans Turkey border fence to tackle migration

[Bernkastel]

From the BBC. I've decided to post this without comments from myself.

Greece has announced plans to build a 12km (eight-mile) fence along part its border with Turkey to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the border. Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis said more than 100,000 people had entered Greece illegally last year and Athens had a duty to act.

Greece has long complained to Turkey about border security. But the European Commission said such fences were "short-term measures" which did not tackle the root of the problem.

The proposed fence would cover a short section of the Greece-Turkey border in the Orestiada area of north-eastern Greece. The area has become the main route into Greece for migrants from Africa and Asia with an average of 245 people crossing illegally every day in October 2010, according to Frontex, the EU's border agency. The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmstroem, has said the numbers are "dramatic".

In a statement, Mr Papoutsis said Greece could "no longer tolerate this".

"Greek society has exceeded its limit in its capacity to accommodate illegal immigrants," he said. "This is the hard reality and we have an obligation to the Greek citizen to deal with it." He said the Greek coastguard would also be upgraded and modernised to tackle illegal migration.

'Short-term'

But the proposals have come under criticism in Greece, with the Greek Communist Party describing them as "inhuman and ineffective". Human Rights Watch warned Athens that the plan would not relieve it of its obligations to protect refugees. Earlier on Monday, a spokesman for the EU Commission said that walls and bars were "short-term measures which will not allow us to tackle illegal immigration in a structural manner".

"We made clear with Greece that the country needs sound and long-term structural reforms and measures to better manage its border, to better address the challenges linked to migration flows," Michele Cercone said. "It is important that these borders... are managed in order to discourage and interrupt traffickers and smugglers that exploit [illegal immigrants]."

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said it was seeking further information about the plans, but the governor of one Edirne, one of the country's border provinces, said all physical barriers were surmountable. "There's a 200km river that can be passed with boats in winter and by foot in summer when the water level is low," Gokhan Sozer told NTV. Around 90% of all migrants who illegally enter the EU have come through Greece, say officials.

The UN's refugee agency says 38,992 arrived in the 10 months to November 2010, compared with 7,574 for the same period of 2009. In November, Frontex deployed 175 border control specialists to the Orestiada area to help Greece tackle the problem. The agency says this led to a 44% fall in the numbers of people successfully crossing the border.

[Chaotic Neutral]

If Turkey joins the EU, this will seem like a pretty stupid waste of money.

Unless I have the chances of that happening or EU immigration wrong.

[Thanas]

If Turkey joins the EU, this will seem like a pretty stupid waste of money.

Unless I have the chances of that happening or EU immigration wrong.

You have. The chances of Turkey joining the EU are quite small. And the Greeks hate the Turks and vice versa.

That said, I think this is a giant waste of money that would be better off spent paying back the debts.

[Skgoa]

Turkey joining won't result in instant open borders, there will be a transitional period. (Even if we ignore for a moment that we are actually talking about Turkey joining the Schengen treaty. ) And even then it might be a good idea to implement this to stop trafficking across the entire border, which means that the greek authorities could concentrate on a relatively small number of border crossings. Turks aren't the "immigration problem" here, its the people from the rest of the Middle East and Africa who enter the EU through Turkey.
On the other hand, if this is implemented, I guess they would just start crossing the Aegean See on boats...

[K. A. Pital]

First World continues to wall itself off from "these dirty folks stealing our jobs". Just at a time you need another confirmation of this, you get the necessary news. Gotta give it to the KKE though, they had the gall to actually stand up against this bullshit "wall off Greece" plan.

[Narkis]

On the other hand, if this is implemented, I guess they would just start crossing the Aegean See on boats...

They already do. 96,398 people were arrested entering the country in the first 9 months of 2010. Of those, only 31,219 went through the border in question. The numbers for 2009 were 96,085 and 6,615 respectively. Last year Frontex started patrolling the Aegean, and while that made no difference to the total amount of people coming in, it meant that they had to find another route. The wall will likewise make no difference. It'll just make them try other, even more dangerous routes, resulting in even more of their deaths.

First World continues to wall itself off from "these dirty folks stealing our jobs". Just at a time you need another confirmation of this, you get the necessary news. Gotta give it to the KKE though, they had the gall to actually stand up against this bullshit "wall off Greece" plan.

Yeah, the far-right has been getting steam lately, and the two major parties are trying to outdo each other in order to get those precious, precious votes. You know there's something wrong when the supposedly center-left government is getting praised by the leader of the only far-right party in the parliament. And every party has criticised this wall, but KKE is the biggest party to focus on the humanitarian issues, while the other big ones went mostly with the effectiveness and general tendency to go against anything proposed by the government.

By the way, what the article doesn't mention is the rest of the minister's plan: Any immigrant who isn't granted asylum will be forcibly deported back to their home country. And asylum is granted to less than 1% of those who seek it, when the EU average is 25%. Τhis whole thing is completely absurd from a country that's supplied so many immigrants to the more developed world. There's an estimated 7 million Greeks living abroad. The country's population is 11 million. Just about everyone has relatives who emigrated and tales about the hardships that they endured. And yet somehow these people don't see anything wrong in the way they treat the immigrants. These brown people are not as worthy as the glorious Greeks, it seems.

[Skgoa]

Is there a reason why they did not propose a wall on the border to Albania? Or is the cheap albanian workforce recognized as to integral to the economy by now?

And I don't know what you are talking about, everyone I met in my seven years in Greece was happy and welcoming when they learned I am german. /sarcasm
I still remember when they offered to give work permits to illegals who register... I know at least one family that did not do that, due to fear of this just being a trick to find them and deport them at a later point.

[Molyneux]

Isn't Greece still in a fairly major financial crisis? I can't help but think there are better uses to which this effort could be put.

[Narkis]

Is there a reason why they did not propose a wall on the border to Albania? Or is the cheap albanian workforce recognized as to integral to the economy by now?

Two reasons, I think: One, Albanian immigrants aren't so visible anymore. They're doing pretty well for themselves, they've been assimilated fairly successfully, and It's hard to tell them apart from the locals, unless you find one who doesn't speak the language very well. And it's virtually impossible to distinguish second generation immigrants. They look and sound Greek. Some (many?) of them even consider themselves Greek. While the immigrants that come through Turkey are mostly Arabs, Pakistani etc. They stand out like sore thumbs. And they inevitably become the focus of any talk or measure about the immigration problem.
And two, it's just much harder to build a wall there. The Albanian borders are 280km, all in a hard, mountainous region. And the Turkish borders are mostly set on the Evros river, with the only land passage being these 12.5km that the wall is going to be built. By the way, the original proposition was a wall that would span all 200km of Turkish borders. It was likely scaled down due to the river being more effective than any wall, especially during winter

And I don't know what you are talking about, everyone I met in my seven years in Greece was happy and welcoming when they learned I am german. /sarcasm
I still remember when they offered to give work permits to illegals who register... I know at least one family that did not do that, due to fear of this just being a trick to find them and deport them at a later point.

I'm really not surprised. Dunno if their fears were unfounded or not, but I know more than one family who likewise didn't register.

Isn't Greece still in a fairly major financial crisis? I can't help but think there are better uses to which this effort could be put.

Yes, and most definitely yes.