Ministers to ask Greece to clarify border fence plan

Questions to be asked about controversial plan for border with Turkey.

Greece will next week be asked to provide more details about the fence it plans to build on its border with Turkey.

Member states’ interior ministers will seek to clarify the size of the fence, as initial reports talked of it covering the entire 150-kilometre border and subsequent government statements said that it would be only 12.5km long. The European Commission has warned that the fence is not a long-term solution to the problem of illegal migration. Greece’s border with Turkey has become the main route of illegal migration to the EU as trans-Mediterranean routes have been made more difficult.

Frontex, the EU’s border agency, sent more than 200 guards to the Greek land border in November, after an invitation from the government to assist in the face of a sudden increase in migration. The initial two-month mandate of the mission has been extended until March. Frontex said last month that illegal crossings at the border had dropped by 44% compared with October.

There are concerns that tighter security at the Turkish-Greek border will lead to increased pressure on Turkey’s border with Bulgaria. These fears come at a critical moment for Bulgaria, which, together with Romania, is seeking to join the EU’s Schengen area of borderless travel.

Interior ministers will discuss Bulgaria’s and Romania’s Schengen application at their informal meeting in Gödöllo?, outside Budapest, next Thursday (20 January). They are expected to take a formal decision when they next meet in Brussels on 24 February.

Opposition

In December, Thomas de Maizière and Brice Hortefeux, the interior ministers of Germany and France, wrote to Cecilia Malmström, the European commissioner for home affairs, arguing that Romania and Bulgaria had failed to meet the conditions for joining Schengen. Romania retaliated with threats to cease working with the EU’s mechanism for monitoring post-accession reforms, and to delay Croatia’s EU membership bid – although it has now stepped back from that position.

At their meeting next week, ministers will also discuss crime by itinerant groups, and Commission proposals for integrated border management. On 21 January, national justice ministers will discuss Commission proposals to enhance citizens’ rights.