難民危機
ヨーロッパ各国では、難民の流入にたいし、厳しいスタンスを
明瞭に見せる国が圧倒的になってきている。
デンマークでは、難民からは金目のものを取り上げ、それを難民
の収容費用に充当する旨の法が議会を通過している。チェコでは
大統領と首相が難民対策で険悪な関係に立っており、前者の発
言が物議をかもしている。
こうしたなか、これまでドイツとともに最も難民受け入れに寛容
であったスウェーデンでも態度は厳しくなっており、難民申請を
拒絶した８万人を飛行機のチャーターで強制送還することに決め
ている。
難民問題で最も気の毒なのがギリシアである。昨年９０万人ほ
どがギリシア経由でバルカン、そしてドイツへの流入していったの
だが、ブリュッセルやドイツは、「ギリシアはきちんとした審査もチ
ェックもしないでフリーパスしている。これを３カ月以内にきちんと
整えなかったらシェンゲン協定から、（一時的に）排除する」とギリ
シアに伝えている。
トロイカに一番いじめられて、７月以来、植民地扱いの状況下
におかれているギリシアは最も経済的に追い詰められている国で
ある。皮肉にも、その国が最大の難民の流入口になっているわけ
で、そこにきちんとした審査を要求するというのは、あまりにも無
理難題を吹っかけている感じである。
ギリシアが怒るのも無理はない。国民は、いまもさらなるリスト
ラ、年金カット、増税をトロイカから要求されており、それがいま
アテネの議会で審議されている。ギリシア国民がよくもここまで
我慢をしてきたな、という印象が強い。おそらく余りに困窮したた
め反抗する意欲もそがれてきているのだと思われる（数年前は
激しい抗議行動が続いていた）。
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Sweden to expel up to 80,000 rejected asylum seekers
Interior minister Anders Ygeman tells Swedish media of plan to use charter flights to repatriate thousands amid toughening of immigration rules
Refugees sleep outside the Swedish Migration Agency’s arrival centre in Malmo. Sweden is reported to be considering deporting as many as 80,000 asylum seekers. Photograph: Tt News Agency/Reuters
Agence France-Presse
Thursday 28 January 2016 00.43 GMTLast modified on Thursday 28 January 201600.45 GMT
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Sweden intends to expel up to 80,000 asylum seekers who arrived in 2015 and whose applications had been rejected, interior minister Anders Ygeman said on Wednesday.
“We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000,” the minister was quoted as saying by Swedish media, adding that the government had asked the police and authorities in charge of migrants to organise their expulsion.
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Ygeman said the expulsions, normally carried out using commercial flights, would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft, given the large numbers, staggered over several years.
The proposed measure was announced as Europe struggles to deal with a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of refugees arrive on Greek beaches, with the passengers – mostly fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – undeterred by cold, wintry conditions.
The United Nations says more than 46,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, with more than 170 people killed making the dangerous crossing.
Sweden, which is home to 9.8 million people, is one of the European Union countries that has taken in the largest number of refugees in relation to its population. Sweden accepted more than 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015.
But the number of migrant arrivals has dropped dramatically since Sweden enacted systematic photo ID checks on travellers on 4 January.
Swedish officials on Tuesday called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres a day after the fatal stabbing of an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths.
The alleged attacker was a young male residing at a centre for 14- to 17-year-olds in Mölndal, near Gothenburg, on Sweden’s west coast.
The employee was 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, according to Swedish media reports, whose family was originally from Lebanon. A motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
Her death has led to questions about overcrowded conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war.
In neighbouring Denmark, meanwhile, the government this week approved legislation to seize the valuables of refugees in the hope of limiting the flow of migrants.
Some have likened the Danish proposals to the confiscation of gold and other valuables from Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
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Greece hits back after EU's Schengen threat
Athens furious at being ‘scapegoated’ over refugee crisis and fears effect of being expelled from passport-free zone
Wednesday 27 January 2016 18.49 GMTLast modified on Wednesday 27 January 201622.00 GMT
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Greece has hit back angrily after being given three months to avoid being suspended from Europe’s free-travel Schengen area because of its alleged failures to get a grip on the continent’s mass migration crisis.
The European commission said on Wednesday that Athens was failing to observe its obligations under the rules governing Europe’s 26-country passport-free travel area, known as Schengen.
“Greece is under pressure,” said Valdis Dombrovskis, a commission vice-president. “Greece seriously neglected its obligations … There are serious deficiencies in the carrying out of external border control that must be overcome.”
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Greece has been the main gateway to Europe via Turkey for more than a million people over the past year, the majority of them from the Middle East. The influx shows little sign of letting up, with more than 35,000 having made the short but hazardous crossing from Turkey to the Greekislands this month alone.
The Germans, as well as several other EU countries taking in large numbers of migrants, have long been furious with the Greeks for allegedly simply waving the new arrivals through without registration and ID checks and setting them on the Balkan route towards Austria and Germany.
But Athens responded robustly to the criticism, instead blaming Turkey’s failure to honour the deal it struck with the EU in November. Describing the threat to isolate Greece as unconstructive on Wednesday, it claimed the draft evaluation report had been conducted at a time when the situation on the ground was different to the one prevailing two and a half months later.
“Greece has surpassed itself in order to keep its obligations,” said government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili, insisting that it was not Greece’s fault that Turkey had failed to clamp down on smugglers’ rings and stem the flow of refugees. “We expect everyone else to do the same.”
Members of the Greek Red Cross help migrants and refugees to disembark from an inflatable boat in Lesbos. Photograph: Mstyslav Chernov/AP
EU governments made clear on Monday that there would need to be unprecedented action against Greece if it failed to start playing by the Schengen rules. Wednesday’s warning from the commission confirmed that. Dombrovskis said that a secret EU mission to Greece in November had concluded that Athens was avoiding the Schengen rules on several fronts.
“There is no effective identification and registration of irregular migrants,” said Dombrovskis. “Fingerprints are not being entered systematically into the system, travel documents are not being systematically checked for authenticity or against crucial security databases.”
The unprecedented move to sanction Greece is being combined with national governments acting to extend and prolong national border controls for up to two years, dealing a potentially terminal blow to the Schengen regime which has been in effect for more than 20 years and is generally viewed as one of the EU’s biggest and most popular achievements.
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The refugee crisis and jihadi terrorism in Europe have put the system under its greatest stress and could yet bring down EU governments. On the frontline of the migration flows – 850,000 migrants traversed Greece last year – Athens is furious at being scapegoated by the rest of the EU and fears the impact of being quarantined.
The Greek foreign ministry released statistics on Wednesday showing that 90% of the new arrivals last year were from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, most of whom would routinely qualify for refugee status. By contrast, the commission said this week that 60% of those entering the EU currently were “economic migrants” who were not fleeing war and not in need of protection and should be deported.
A spokesman for the migration minister told the Guardian that despite the cold weather and choppy seas, about 3,000 refugees had managed to slip into Greece every day this month.
“In that time Turkey has agreed to take back 123,” said Kyriakos Mandouvalos, conceding that while local reaction on several islands had delayed construction of hot spots to process refugees they would be completed by the end of February. “There have been a lot of technical and political problems to get around but by the last 10 days of February five will open on Lesbos, Leros, Chios, Samos and Kos.”
Migrants and refugees walk after crossing the Macedonian border. Photograph: Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty Images
The warning from the commission came in the form of a draft report on Greece’s performance, which still has to be endorsed by a qualified majority of EU governments. The commission would then give Athens three months to take “remedial action” to safeguard its place in the Schengen system. At the same time EU governments, with the commission’s support, are acting to increase border controls at Macedonia’s border with northern Greece, moves that could see tens of thousands of refugees being kettled in Greece.
Under rulings from the European court of human rights, EU countries are not allowed to return asylum seekers to Greece because the conditions for refugees there are deemed to be too wretched. But stopping them crossing into Macedonia before heading further north would cancel out the need for returning them.
