GETTY Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri admitted most failed asylum seekers are not deported

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Just 42 per cent of economic migrants are being kicked out of EU member states even though authorities have determined they have no legal right to be there. Eurocrats today tried to heap blame on Greek border guards for the mess, saying they are being too slow to return failed asylum seekers to Turkey. But critics said the figures were an example of the EU's "incompetence" on asylum issues, adding that failing to tackle economic migration erodes public confidence to the detriment of genuine refugees.

The shock statistics, revealed by the head of the Brussels border force, will also make uncomfortable reading for Angela Merkel, who today came under pressure to introduce a migration cap in Germany. Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri said he expected Greek officials to oversee a rate of return of 500 economic migrants a day to neighbouring Turkey, but that they were falling way short of that number. Instead, a paltry 748 migrants have been returned across the Aegean sea since the deal came into force last March, while the EU has taken in 2,761 Syrian refugees from Turkey during the same period.

GETTY Greece has been blamed for overseeing a slow rate of returns to Turkey

GETTY Critics say the failure to tackle economic migration undermines public confidence in real refugees

To hear that we are deporting less than half of failed asylum seekers is confirmation of the EU and Frontex's incompetence Ukip's migration spokeswoman Jane Collins MEP

UKIP Home Affairs spokeswoman Jane Collins MEP said the figures "showed the incompetence of the European Asylum process and the urgency for the UK to extricate itself from the EU". She added: "The UK has always had a proud heritage of giving shelter to real, genuine asylum seekers but what we have seen over the last few years has been the exploitation of naive EU leaders by economic migrants, criminal gangs and even terrorists. "To hear that we are deporting less than half of failed asylum seekers is confirmation of the EU and Frontex's incompetence. No doubt they will say they need more money. In the case of Greece that may be true but they could make life much better for themselves by leaving the single currency instead of being a slave to Frankfurt and Brussels. "There needs to be accountability for this failure and if needs be, jobs must go from those who failed to do their jobs. "This is the safety and security of the whole continent which the EU is taking so lightly, despite the devastating attacks faced over the last years. "Theresa May must get on with the process of removing us from this dangerous and failed project."

Under a landmark agreement between Brussels and Ankara, sealed last summer, all migrants who make the sea crossing to Greece are sent back, with Europe taking in one genuine refugee from a camp in Turkey for every failed asylum seeker returned. The pact, which has come under pressure from the increasingly combative Turkish president Recep Erdogan, has been hailed by Mrs Merkel for reducing the once steady flow of asylum seekers using the Balkan route north to a trickle. Separate figures released by the European Commission last month show the EU's internal quota system is also in chaos, with just five per cent of asylum seekers in Italy and Greece who are earmarked for relocation having been moved. A number of eastern European states including Hungary are furiously resisting the imposition of an EU-wide quota system for migrants, claiming that it impacts unreasonably on their sovereignty.

Migrants clash with police across Europe Wed, February 15, 2017 Migrants clash with each other in over crowded camps across Europe. Play slideshow EPA 1 of 107 Moroccan Police look at immigrants trying to jump the six-meter-high fence in Ceuta, Spanish enclave on the north of Africa, 09 December 2016.