Germany is set to take in 1,500 refugees from Greece. That’s a good thing. But it’s also an example of how Europe’s refugee policy has failed, writes Jens Thurau.
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Image: Reuters/A. Konstantinidis
The number is 1,500. That's out of the 12,000 refugees and migrants who lived in the former Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos before it burned to the ground. Most of them are still on the island with nowhere to go. Still, 1,500 of them will be flown to Germany.
Every person brought to safety is good news, that has to be said. But is Germany going it alone, just like in 2015 when the country took in hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe?
No, that is not the case.
The German government’s humanitarian gesture seems desperate, clueless, and somewhat timid.
DW's Berlin correspondent Jens Thurau
Relevant authorities are now busy trying to point out that the estimated 400 families set to arrive in Germany don’t all come from Lesbos — with many living on various other Greek islands. And most of them have already had their application for asylum registered.
The message is clear: Berlin is helping the hopelessly overloaded Greek authorities. But the narrative must not be: the camp burnt down so now there is a clear way to get to wonderful Germany. It’s a despicable narrative that uses hundreds of desperate refugees — children, women, men — as scapegoats.
And yet, this tale depicts the moral, ethical and humanitarian standards that the European Union's refugee policy has encompassed for some time.
Just don’t set a precedent. Politicians in Berlin have said time and again that at the EU's headquarters in Brussels, the Germans are told that taking in refugees is their problem. Those looking the other way — mainly Eastern European counterparts — will say it the issue has nothing to do with them.
And Germany knows exactly the effect this has: Every humanitarian gesture becomes fodder for right-wing, populist misanthropists.
Every lone move — no matter how small — is seen as part of Germany’s ambition to dominate Europe. If you take away the games in Brussels from the refugee equation, then it becomes clear that in Germany, too, generosity plays a huge part in politics, despite the criticism that Germany is just as callous as many other nations and societies.
Cities and communities here want to take in far more than the mere 1,500 refugees planned to arrive soon. But they’ve come up against European moral impotence.
So what exactly does Europe want to be?
A money dispenser enjoying open borders again once coronavirus has been tamed? Or are there still values that at least a majority of the 27 member states still share? Ones that put Europe in a position to challenge the populists in Washington, the autocrats in the Middle East, in Asia or in Turkey?
In Berlin, it seems that most politicians have given up hope that countries like Hungary and Poland are ready to — or capable of — agreeing on a common refugee policy. That’s why it is now paramount to build a circle of nations willing to either take in refugees from Greece or Italy or at least share the cost of the crisis.
What this continent now needs is an uprising of decent, empathetic people — even if that threatens to split society. Otherwise, nothing stands in the way of nationalism and populism.
And those people do exist the decent, compassionate ones. They’re in cities and towns, in churches and clubhouses, in workplaces and in businesses.
Hell on earth — Greece's Moria refugee camp and its tortured history
The Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos has burned to the ground. The situation is serious but it was already grave before fire swept through Europe's largest — and most overcrowded — refugee camp.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/P. Balaskas
The night it all burned down
Fire broke out in a number of spots around the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos late on the night of Tuesday, September 8. That has led authorities to suspect arson. Some in the camp have suggested locals set the fires but there are other reports that point to migrants themselves.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Lagoutaris
Into the darkness
All of the inhabitants of the hopelessly overcrowded camp managed to get to safety. According to media reports, many migrants fled into the hills and forests nearby. Some are said to have begun walking to Mytilene, the island's capital. There have been no reports of death or injury.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/P. Balaskas
Life threatening
Moria was originally designed to hold up to 2,800 people. At the time the fires broke out it held some 12,600. Living conditions in the camp were catastrophic before the fire. Looking at this photo taken in its aftermath, it is glaringly apparent that no one will be able to live there again any time soon — at least not under humane conditions.
Image: Reuters/A. Konstantinidis
Pixelated camp
Anyone hoping to see satellite images on Google Maps of the camp, located on the eastern shore of Lesbos, just 15 kilometers from the Turkish coast, is out of luck. The site has been pixilated. "Google itself does not pixelate satellite images," the company told DW, referring to third-party entities that supply the satellite imagery. It is unknown why the camp has been digitally altered.
Image: 2020 CNES/Airbus, European Space Imaging, Maxar Technologies
A clear image
This aerial view of the same area shows that the camp has been greatly expanded. In the earlier Google Maps image, the house with the red roof stands alone but in the more recent photo it seems to have been swallowed up by the camp.
Image: DW/D. Tosidis
Looking into the past
The camp is not pixelated on Google Street View. Whereas the pixilated satellite images on Google Maps are from 2020, those on Street View are from December 2011 — before there was even a camp. At the time, the only thing there was an old military barracks. It was not until October 2015 that Greece began registering asylum-seekers at the site before taking them to the mainland.
Image: 2020 Google
From stopover to longterm stays
When this photo was taken in October 2015, refugees only stayed at the camp for a short time. That changed drastically in March 2016, when the EU signed its so-called refugee deal with Turkey. Since then, refugees have had to endure long stays before being sent to other EU countries or being deported.
Image: DW/D. Cupolo
Waiting and waiting and waiting
As a result of the EU-Turkey deal, refugees are no longer allowed to travel to the Greek mainland because Turkey would then no longer be obliged to take them. But as EU states disagree over who should take how many refugees, people remain in the camp for longer and longer periods of time. The overcrowded camp is populated by many people from a wide range of nations — no wonder there are tensions.
Image: DW/D. Cupolo
When tensions boil over
Those tensions first erupted in September 2016, in the form of violent conflicts during which fires were set and much of the camp was destroyed. At the time, there were only 3,000 migrants in the camp. A few months later, several hundred migrants set fire to EU asylum agency containers in the camp in protest to the slow pace of asylum application processing.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Schwarz
Fire and death
There was another major fire at Moria in September 2019. What started as a blaze in an adjacent olive orchard quickly spread to the camp itself. Less than half an hour later, another fire broke out in the camp, killing a mother and her infant child. At the time, Moria housed some 12,000 people.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Too dangerous to visit
In August, North Rhine-Westphalia State Premiere Armin Laschet visited the camp. His state is the most populous in Germany and the politician expressed a desire to see the so-called wild section of the camp located outside its enclosed boundaries. However, that part of the visit was quickly cancelled for safety reasons as the overall mood was again tense, with many migrants chanting "Free Moria."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Hülsmeier
Now what?
A overcrowded camp with appalling sanitation and medical conditions as well as ethnic tensions — and then the first coronavirus infections — life at the Moria refugee camp was dire before this week's blaze. But what will happen now? Is this the end of Moria, or perhaps the moment to create new, more humane living conditions? It is devastating that no one can answer this question.
