Government says it will support Greece as thousands of people arrive at Turkish border

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

The German government – anxious about the political consequences of a “repeat of 2015” – is tolerating Greece’s decision to suspend asylum claims at its borders and has launched a social media campaign to deter Syrian refugees from embarking on a journey to central Europe.

About 12,500 people are estimated to be waiting on the Turkish side of the Greek border after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Saturday he would open his country’s borders for refugees fleeing the nine-year war in Syria to cross into Europe.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside Angela Merkel’s chancellory in Berlin on Tuesday night, calling on her to advocate opening the EU’s borders, but her government has declined to publicly criticise the Greek government for suspending asylum claims for one month.

“We don’t want a repeat of the year 2015”, said Horst Seehofer, the conservative interior minister in Merkel’s cabinet, referring to the arrival of 890,000 asylum seekers in Germany that year after the country decided not to close its borders five years ago.

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The situation on the EU’s outer borders escalated further on Wednesday morning, with reports of Greek authorities firing teargas and stun grenades to repulse a push by migrants to cross its land border from Turkey.

In 2015, social media played a crucial role in drawing many refugees to Germany, after an ambiguously worded tweet from the federal agency for migration and refugees led many Syrians to believe the country was no longer enforcing the Dublin process for handling applications.

Tweets sent by the German interior ministry in Arabic, Farsi, English and German on Tuesday night looked designed to suppress similar pull-effects this time around.

“We need orderly conditions at the EU’s external border,” the tweets read. “We will use our best efforts to support Greece in achieving this. Europe’s borders are not open for #refugees from #Turkey, and neither are our German borders.”

A German government spokesperson said on Wednesday that the country would not seek a unilateral solution to the dramatic situation on Greece’s border: “We are looking for a European situation, Germany cannot do it alone,” said Ulrike Demmer.

Seehofer said his government was, however, open to joining a “coalition of the willing” that would take in about 5,000 minors from Greek migrant camps.

Turkish authorities said one person was killed and five wounded in clashes near the border village of Kastanies on Wednesday – an assertion the Greek government strongly rejected.

“I deny it categorically,” said Stelios Petsas, a Greek government spokesman. “Turkey fabricates and channels fake news against our country.”

Under the conditions of a €6bn deal struck between the EU and Turkey in 2016, both sides said they would work together to stop migrants from crossing over into the EU.

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While the EU has allocated the promised funds, Turkey says the money is inadequate and claims to have already spent more than $30bn helping 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in its territory.

Gerald Knaus, the chairman of the European Stability Initiative thinktank, who is seen as the initial architect of the EU-Turkey deal, called for a new pact with Turkey in order to avoid a new refugee crisis.

Knaus criticised the EU’s reaction to the crisis on the Greek-Turkish border. “We are witnessing a watershed in international asylum policy,” he told the German newspaper Die Welt.

“What the EU is currently doing is Donald Trump’s biggest dream: to abolish the right to asylum and militarise the border. If this approach becomes the norm in Europe, then 2020 will be the year in which the Geneva refugee convention dies.”

• This article was amended on 11 March 2020 because an earlier version referred to the arrival of approximately one million asylum seekers into Germany in 2015. In January 2016 the German government put the the number of migrants who came in 2015 at 1.1 million. However, in September 2016 the government revised the figure downwards, to 890,000.



