Thousands of undocumented migrants leave their homes every year for a European Union they believe to be the promised land. But for the ones caught at the Greek-Turkish border, refugee camps prove to be quite a different reality. Huddled together in cold, unhygienic camps with no warm water and no separate rooms for men and women, they face long waits for asylum.

Aid organizations have repeatedly called foul over the conditions, raising the attention of the EU and now of Athens.

At an EU migration law conference at the Academy of European Law (ERA) in Trier, Germany, Loukia Kotroni of Greece’s foreign ministry admitted that Greece was behind in processing many cases, due to a lack of personnel.

"There was a huge problem with the refugee camps because we didn’t have enough space. And when you don’t detain people, they disappear and you can’t repatriate them."

Slow reforms

Over the last two decades, there have been increasing waves of refugees coming into Greece. Many of the migrants plan to continue on to other EU countries; some want to stay in Greece. But for a long time, Greece’s asylum procedures were not updated to meet the new demand. According to Kotroni, it was not until 2010 that Athens introduced asylum reforms, including the establishment of a government asylum agency.

Greece, Kotroni said, now wants to address the cramped conditions in its refugee camps by expanding the camps themselves and the services provided to asylum-seekers – as well as Greece’s repatriation policies.

Working to help Greece in its efforts is the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), an EU-created agency designed to coordinate European countries’ asylum work.

The Malta-based office has sent 13 support teams to Greece, according to team coordinator Claus Folden, who said he has already seen improvement in Greece.

When the EASO first went into Greece, Folden said, there were only a handful of upper-level commissions set up to handle asylum-seekers’ complaints. "Now there are 10, and at the beginning of next year it will be 20," he said, adding that the panels will include judges from other countries such as Austria.

A motor for change

In the aim of creating a common framework for European asylum procedures, EASO collects data from the bloc’s 27 member states and supports the exchange of best-practice experiences.

It also collects data on refugees’ countries of origin to verify their repatriation. EASO is currently putting together an annual report on the situation of asylum-seekers in Europe, as well as handbooks and guidelines to establish an EU-wide asylum mechanism.

The agency analyzes how countries across the EU handle emergency situations such as the arrivals of large undocumented groups. Greece’s northeastern Evros region is not the only part of Europe where refugee camps are bursting at the seams; camps in Italy, Malta and other parts of Southern Europe also face crisis conditions. According to Folden, that’s why pan-EU legislation and concrete cooperation between member states are so essential.

According to Loukia Kotroni, Greece has already made some progress thanks to EASO’s help. In addition to establishing commissions to handle refugee complaints, he said the camp conditions and the repatriation procedures have improved.

However, the job is far from finished.

"Some 300 to 400 people are arriving in the region daily," he said. "There is progress in some areas. Every day there’s something else to take care of."

In the future, EASO intends to become active outside the EU as well. "We could help North African countries to develop their asylum systems and to raise their protection level by using member states’ expertise," said Folden.

EASO also plans to cooperate with other organizations, including the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a Geneva-based group established after World War II to help resettle displaced people.

As EASO works to expand its focus, however, a central question has come into play. In order to take on more roles, Folden said, the organization must first put into play common EU immigration and asylum policies.

But therein lies somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem.

"We’re realizing that this office, whose responsibilities include implementing common asylum procedures, was established before the introduction of the asylum system itself."

Author: Daphne Grathwohl / dl
Editor: Andreas Illmer