Greece to reform asylum rules to speed deportations

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced this Friday to Parliament that he will reform the country's asylum laws to speed up the approval procedure and, thus, the deportations of economic immigrants.

He explained that these measures will include 'those migrants who refuse to be relocated in a separate camp or those who do not attend interviews related to the case,' so 'refusing to cooperate will have severe consequences in the future.'

Even though the text to amend the asylum law has not yet been submitted in the Hellenic Parliament, the president said that its consequences will include the transfer to closed camps the government is planning to set up for those whose asylum applications are rejected and will be deported.

After the 2015humanitarian crisis, Greece became the main gateway for refugees and migrants, mostly from Syria.

After the arrival of more than one million asylum-seekers was registered, the European Union and Turkey signed on March 2016 an agreement to scale down the migrant flow through a mechanism that includes the repatriation of economic immigrants.

But the process has been too slow, which has led to the Greek reception centers in the Aegean Islands being overcrowded, with a population of about 30,000 people.

Regarding this issue, the prime minister pointed out that the main problem Greece is currently facing is immigration 'and not so much of refugees.'

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