The situation in Greece after the EU-Turkey agreement
Almost four years have passed since the imposition of the EU-Turkey agreement which attempted to prevent the uncontrolled entry of undocumented immigrants/refugees within the EU and, more broadly, to reconstitute the mechanisms for the regulation, control and disciplining of their movement, which had completely broke down between 2015 and the beginning of 2016 – when more than one million immigrants/refugees managed to cross the continent and reach Germany and other countries of the developed European “center”.[1]
Initially, this “deal” led to a significant reduction of arrivals: between April 2016 and December 2016 only 22.000 immigrants/refugees crossed the borders of Greece.[2] The situation remained the same in 2017, with 30.000 arrivals, and started to change in 2018 with more than 50.000 border crossings. The escalation of war and violence in Syria and Afghanistan in 2019, on the one hand, and the deterioration of the Turkish economy in the same period (with the GDP of Turkey growing only at a rate of 0.3% according to the estimation of the European Council), on the other hand, led to a significant increase of arrivals, with 75.000 people crossing … Read the rest