Germany rejects EU calls to accept children from Greek migrant camps
Germany has rejected calls from the European Commission asking the country to take in more unaccompanied migrant children from overcrowded refugee camps in Greece.
Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, on Christmas Eve said while he was concerned about the plight of the migrants, doing so without a concerted European strategy would only encourage people smugglers.
“A solo act by Germany would lead to a pull effect,” he said. German Development Minister Gerd Mueller said that the most effective course of action was to help the migrant children where they are, rather than bringing them to Germany.
Mr Seehofer said Germany was already doing a considerable amount to assist in the crisis, sending 57 trucks with supplies for more than 10,000 people. Germany has also taken in 10,200 refugees as part of a campaign in the region by the UNHCR in 2018 and 2019.
“It’s not only important to keep order, but we must act in a humanitarian fashion,” he said.
“We must not abandon Greece.”
Brussels said in a statement that the situation on the ground was “very challenging” with more than 5,000 unaccompanied minors in camps across Greece and its islands, criticising the “limited response of member states”.
Greece has also been critical of other EU member states for failing to properly assist despite continued calls for help.
An estimated nine per cent of the minors are under 14, while 92 per cent are male.
“The Commission has repeatedly called upon the member states to continue relocations from Greece on a voluntary basis, with funds provided by the Commission,” the European Commission told the German Press Agency.
“The Commission is concerned about the difficult situation for unaccompanied minors on the ground in Greece notably as concerns the situation on the heavily overcrowded islands.”
German Greens leader Robert Habeck said that Germany had a responsibility to “get the children out” of conditions which he described as intolerable.
Mr Seehofer hit back, saying that Mr Habeck was not acting honestly.
“This is dishonest politics… (that Habeck) comes at this transparent time with this unhelpful proposal,” Mr Seehofer said.
Asylum policy has become an increasingly controversial political topic in Germany in recent years after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to welcome refugees fleeing the Syrian Civil War.
The German Office of Migrants and Refugees registered 890,000 refugees in 2015 at the height of the refugee ‘crisis’, with numbers dropping to 280,000 in 2016 and 186,000 in 2017.
