II. EU’s involvement and the Migration Pact on the Ground: Greece
Since the adoption in June 2024, member states of the European Union had two years in order to prepare for the New Migration Pact, coming into effect on June 12th 2026. For over ten years, the EU has been working on a common asylum system, enhancing effective border management, setting up efficient, standardized asylum procedures across member states. What is being celebrated as a milestone in EU legislation is fatal for the people it’s affecting.
We have consistently been monitoring field reality across border states of the EU and it seems like every month the situation for people on the move is worsening. Border violence, pushbacks, deaths, disappearances, criminalization and inhumane treatment of people seeking refuge mark the daily reality while tightening legislation focuses on management, acceleration and processing of people, losing sight of the original purpose of asylum legislation.
What we are witnessing on Lesvos right now is already a disregard of the legal framework. Expulsion of people with positive decisions from the camp before the 30-day period, illegal pushbacks, the separation of families in the asylum process, wrongful identification of nationalities resulting in complications during the asylum procedure due to inadequate interpretation, and the ongoing practice of criminalization and unlawful convictions have become an established practice, partially denied by the Greek government. Although NGOs denounce these practices constantly, there are no real consequences. Instead, the New Migration Pact offers a legal base for it.
The revocation of 1,203 positive asylum decisions for Syrian nationals and the sharp drop in recognition for Afghan nationals as well as increasing rejections for Somalian nationals are a worrying development. This coincides with the invitation of Taliban officials into the EU to discuss deportations to Afghanistan. Already, Greece is bypassing forced returns by offering financial and reintegration support. Furthermore, grounds for so-called “administrative detention”, meaning there are no criminal charges, are being extended in comparison to the former legislation. With the new Pact, rejected asylum seekers will directly be held in pre-return detention, with an extension of that period to 18 months and the possibility for another 6-month extension.
The most prominent example of what will happen under the new Pact is already visible in the construction of the new Closed Control Access Center (CCAC) in Vastria. So-called “multipurpose centers” that combine screening, processing, detention and deportation facilities serve as a one-stop, without giving people on the move access to local community and provision, as well as keeping procedures out of sight of the public. This means further invisibility of practice without social control. Seeing how at CCACs on Lesvos, Samos and Leros there are inadequacies in almost every department, from health care provision, food distribution, structural exclusion of food services for people outside of the asylum process and general living conditions, a much more secluded center is likely to intensify all of the above mentioned, especially with even less access to the Greek population and accelerated procedures. NGOs on the island have been opposing the construction of the CCAC in Vastria from the start, warning about around the clock video surveillance, violating privacy rights, as well as the use of private security firms, endangering the misuse of personal and biometrical data. Treating people as “security risks” and screening them before they can apply for asylum is a constitutional denial of their claim to protection and safety. The remote location in a highly flammable pine forest cuts people off from access to public services and community, impeding access for NGOs and putting residents at risk for being trapped in a forest fire. A contract over 585,680€ for a fire detection system guarantees no safety for camp residents, since the system has a merely reactive role and there are no safe escape routes from the CCAC yet.
Centralized legislation to bypass local authority and oversight by the Greek government in order to finalize plans for desalination plants to provide the CCAC Vastria with drinking water, show how central decisions do not take into account local circumstances and the effects of their policies. On a bigger scale the Migration Pact once again puts member states at the EU border under bigger pressure to “handle migration” than other member states.
Mistakes made by asylum services in regards to identification at the present time cast a foreshadow on probable future risks for the people seeking protection. Especially with regards to border police serving as screening staff, instead of trained personnel, the fair and secure application of the procedure is in serious question. Additionally, the new Greek Draft Law includes the possibility of using artificial intelligence for different steps of the asylum process like provision of information, translation, recording interviews or interpretation. NGOs fear lack of data security and protection of personal data, as well as setting in motion the creation of automated pathways endangering the individual assessment of cases. Artificial intelligence lacks precise interpretation and context knowledge necessary for accurate assessments. Finally, the use of AI strips the process of the human element and neglects specific circumstances like trauma and vulnerabilities. The replacement of human contact and empathy with AI generated transcripts provides no control mechanisms for possible failures in the system.
The fiction of non-entry is yet another way to endanger the lives of people on the move. Apart from pushbacks happening regularly not only at sea between Turkey and Greece but also on land after the arrival of people, the “non-entry” literally takes away the reaching of safe land. The accelerated border procedure that should last at most 12 weeks is followed by 12 weeks of detention in order to prepare for the deportation of the people. Officially never having entered the European Union this opens up legal loopholes that enable invalidation of current legislation and bypassing protection standards. The de-facto border detention automatically applies bound to certain recognition rates, which means that individual case review is at risk of being neglected. The establishment of so-called “safe third countries” facilitates deportation to those countries, in case people have passed through them, disregarding the insufficient means of protection they offer. In the case of Greece and the Greek islands, people are already being pushed back into Turkish territory. After June 12th this will be the most likely destination for arriving people. Furthermore, the law clearly leaves the option for detention of children and people regardless of vulnerability, like pregnant women, people with disabilities or survivors of torture. At the current CCAC residents are locked in overnight and until the asylum procedure is officially starting, which is already a heavy restriction of movement, that will only increase.
Seeing how pushbacks and border violence does not lead to less people arriving but to a diversion of routes taken, often being forced to take more dangerous courses, the consequences of the new Pact will likely also lead to people looking for alternatives, since people will continue to move seeking safety. A rise of arrivals on Crete is now met with a planned expansion of resources for the Hellenic Coast Guard in terms of procurement of boats and offshore vessels, surveillance drones and the staffing of 500 new officers for the Coast Guard. This investment in surveillance and active force mirrors the attitude towards people on the move and how they are being met in Greece and Europe. Instead of recognizing the need for safe passage the Greek government, backed by the EU, tries preventing the arrival of people searching for protection. In a meeting between the Greek and Turkish Coast Guard in mid-May the cooperation between the two countries was discussed, containing information sharing and maritime operations.
Together with other member states like Germany, Austria and Denmark, Greece is making plans for agreements with third countries to return rejected asylum seekers. Those might include among others Rwanda, Libya, Uzbekistan or Ethiopia. Regardless of people not having ties to those countries they are being deported to places of unsafety. In the case of Libya several human rights violations are consistently made public with reports of violence, extortion and torture. Nevertheless, the EU trains and funds the so-called Libyan coast guard and now plans to send people in need of protection back to those circumstances. Rejected asylum seekers who cannot be taken back to their country of origin would be taken to these return hubs, where no binding legal framework is installed to protect their fundamental rights and dignity.
What is illegal now is shifting into legal practice and at some point, the concealment and denial of them might no longer be necessary but protected by law.
The EU further changing the legislation means abandoning their duty to protect people and neglecting their responsibility to provide safe pathways for people seeking refuge.
The New Migration Pact shows how a system once designed to offer protection for the ones seeking refuge is step by step officially changing into a system of managing, processing and disposing of people deemed unwanted, stipulating the value of humans into international legislation and abandoning the protection of human rights and life.
Words by Felicitas, Advocacy Officer Greece