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
Members of the Greek Red Cross help migrants and refugees to disembark from an inflatable boat in Lesbos. Photograph: Mstyslav Chernov/AP

Migrants and refugees walk after crossing the Macedonian border. Photograph: Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty Images

Volunteers help an elderly woman from Afghanistan to disembark from a dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos on 27 January

Ian Traynor in Brussels andHelena Smith in Athens-Wednesday 27 January 2016

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.”            

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 Greek islands 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.”

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