EU steps up its aid to Greece over refugees
Pledge of €700m as NGO staff on Aegean Islands are attacked amid refugee crisis on Turkish border
The EU pledged to give €700million (£612million) to Greece to handle the refugee crisis, referring to the country as “Europe’s shield”, as aid workers on embattled Aegean Islands hid from violent vigilante groups amid a backlash towards NGOS. Brussels deployed its top officials to reassure Greece that it was not alone as tens of thousands of desperate migrants and refugees massed on the border with Turkey, in response to Ankara encouraging them to reach the EU.
THE EU pledged to give €700million (£612million) to Greece to handle the refugee crisis, dubbing the country “Europe’s shield”, as aid workers on embattled Aegean Islands hid from violent vigilante groups amid a backlash towards NGOS.
Brussels deployed its top officials to try to reassure Greece that it is not alone as tens of thousands of desperate migrants and refugees mass on the border with Turkey after Ankara encouraged them to try to reach the EU.
Greek police and soldiers have used tear gas and water cannons to keep back refugees and migrants along the land border with Turkey, in scenes which have evoked memories of the 2015 migration crisis. They have prevented more than 24,000 asylum seekers from crossing the frontier since Sunday, the Greek government said.
Referring to Greece as “a European shield”, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, said: “Those who seek to test Europe’s unity will be disappointed. We will hold the line and our unity will prevail.” She said she had “compassion for migrants lured through false promises into this desperate situation”.
Standing alongside the heads of the European Parliament and European Council, as well as Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, she said the EU would provide €700million, half of it immediately. “Our first priority is making sure that order is maintained at the Greek external border, which is also the European border,” she said.
After flying along the border in a Greek military helicopter, she said: “I am fully committed to mobilising all the necessary operational support to the Greek authorities.”
In addition to the financial aid, Frontex, the European border security force, will beef up its presence in Greece, sending seven patrol vessels, two helicopters, a plane and 100 extra guards. They will join 530 Frontex guards already deployed to Greece.
Mr Mitsotakis inspected Greek troops and police in the border zone and said that Greece would not be “blackmailed” by Turkey flooding the area with refugees. He said that the “tens of thousands” of people trying to enter Greece had not fled fighting and bombardments in Syria’s war-torn Idlib province but had been living safely in Turkey for a long period of time.
“This is a blatant attempt by Turkey to use desperate people to promote its geopolitical agenda and to divert attention from the horrible situation in Syria,” he said.
“Europe has not been up to the task of dealing with the migration crisis,” he said, adding that the surge in refugees from Turkey should serve as “a wakeup call for everyone to assume their responsibilities”.
Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, called on Turkey to respect the 2016 deal with the EU in which it agreed to contain the flow of migrants to Europe in exchange for €6 billion in aid.
On islands such as Lesbos, where there is mounting anger over the fresh influx of refugees and migrants, NGO workers and journalists said they have been subject to a witch hunt. Young Greek men, some of them dressed in black, have been intimidating aid
‘Our first priority is making sure that order is maintained at the Greek external border’
‘Violent Right-wing groups are patrolling in the streets, taking a record of foreign faces’
workers, building road blocks and throwing rocks at their cars.
It was not clear whether they were locals or from other parts of Greece, possibly connected with far-right organisations such as Golden Dawn.
“Violent Right-wing groups patrolling in the streets, taking a record of foreign-looking faces and car number plates,” Franziska Grillmeier, a German journalist, reported.
On Monday night, a group of men in hoodies poured petrol on the deck of an NGO rescue ship, the Mare Liberum, while it was docked in a port in Lesbos.
Michael Trammer, a German photojournalist, was beaten up by a group of Greek men while photographing refugees arriving in boats on Lesbos.
Several NGOS said they were suspending their work and evacuating their staff from Lesbos.
“Once night falls, there are non-stop attacks on NGOS, on workers, on people who are here as volunteers,” said Douglas Herman, co-founder of Refocus, an organisation which teaches media skills to refugees.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes he has every right to feel aggrieved at the enormous burden his country has suffered as a consequence of the long-running civil war across the border in Syria. Nine years of bitter fighting have led to an estimated four million Syrian refugees seeking sanctuary in southern Turkey, a challenge that would overwhelm the resources of even the most advanced European states.
Indeed, the consensus among European leaders – that the Turks were in danger of being overwhelmed by the volume of refugees fleeing across their border – was a key consideration in the European Union’s decision in 2016 to grant Ankara six billion euros in aid to help cover the cost of providing them with shelter and sustenance.
The other reason for Brussels’s generosity was the well-founded concern that, if it did not provide the necessary assistance, then Ankara would simply open its borders, flooding Europe with millions of asylum-seekers, a tactic the Turks had happily employed before to force the EU’S hand.
For, far from being the innocent party in the Syrian conflict, as Mr Erdogan would like the world to believe, the Turkish leader shares just as much responsibility as the Assad regime, together with its Russian and Iranian backers, for provoking yet another refugee crisis by launching the latest military intervention into northern Syria.
The Turkish offensive conforms with Mr Erdogan’s long-held ambition to control large swathes of territory there, which is part of his ultimate goal of overthrowing Assad and establishing an Islamist government in Damascus.
To this end, Ankara is supporting a motley collection of Islamist militias, many of which have been linked to anti-western terrorist organisations such as al-qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Mr Erdogan, by dint of his attempted land grab, therefore bears a heavy responsibility for helping to fan the flames of violence.
But that has not stopped him from reverting to his old trick of holding the EU to ransom by threatening to flood Europe with a fresh wave of refugees. Only this time, instead of financial assistance, he is demanding that Europe give its backing to his military invasion. Given the near universal contempt in which the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-assad is held, Western leaders have little interest in defending the interests of the Syrian state, especially when it is engaged in a ferocious assault aimed at reclaiming control of Idlib province, the last remaining rebel stronghold.
Yet the fact remains that, by acting in support of rebel factions in Idlib, Ankara is deliberately violating the territorial integrity of another sovereign state, a clear breach of the UN charter and international law.
The real motivation behind Ankara’s military operations is at odds with Turkey’s claim that they are being undertaken primarily to prevent a further influx of refugees fleeing Idlib.
This was certainly the conclusion Nato ambassadors reached last week when they held an emergency summit to consider Mr Erdogan’s outrageous move to invoke Article Four of the alliance’s founding treaty, under which a member state can seek support when it believes its territorial integrity and security is at stake.
The sheer effrontery of Mr Erdogan claiming Turkey was the victim when his troops were busily violating Syria’s territorial integrity was not lost on Nato leaders who, while expressing sympathy for Turkey’s predicament, were less enthusiastic about supporting Ankara’s actions in Syria, especially as they could provoke a direct confrontation with Russia, a development other Nato members are keen to avoid at all costs.
The deepening tensions between Turkey and Russia over Idlib add a fascinating dimension to the Syrian imbroglio, not least because it was only last year that Ankara put its Nato membership in jeopardy by agreeing to buy Russia’s state-of-the-art S-400 anti-aircraft missile system.
There is no evidence that the Turks used these missiles to shoot down two Syrian warplanes operating in Idlib earlier this week. But the fact that the Turkish military is now fighting a Russian-backed regime at the same time as negotiating arms deals with Moscow suggests Mr Erdogan may have overreached himself in terms of his ambitions in Syria.
This is undoubtedly a consideration Europe needs to take on board as it ponders how to deal with the president’s latest attempt to blackmail its leaders by using defenceless refugees as a bargaining chip.
Not only are Turkey’s tactics, where thousands of refugees are actively being encouraged to flee to the West, morally reprehensible. They represent the desperate actions of a leader who is suffering the consequences of his ill-judged intervention in Syria.
read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion