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The EU Commission has proposed independent observers monitor the way Greece deals with the arrival of migrants in the Mediterranean after reports of forced pushbacks by coastguards. The move is being met with resistance by the Greek government.
EU officials have told Politico such resistance could cost Greece its recovery EU funds.
Although the Commission is yet to make it official, “patience is wearing off” in Brussels, they claimed.
The EU is preparing for an influx of Afghans seeking asylum, whether or not people flee en masse from the new Taliban government, the chief of the EU border agency said, noting that millions are already displaced in neighbouring countries.
In an interview, Fabrice Leggeri, director-general of border agency Frontex, told Reuters the body was preparing for a possible surge, both through traditional routes such as from Turkey to Greece, and new routes such as via Belarus, which Brussels accuses of sending illegal migrants across the frontier.
Frontex, also involved in the accusations of forced pushbacks of migrants in Greece, is “monitoring what’s going on” inside Afghanistan itself, but also keeping an eye on Afghan communities in neighbouring states, he said, listing Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Mr Leggeri added: “Our expectation is that depending on what’s going on in Afghanistan of course people in need of international protection might try to flee from Afghanistan.
“But what will very likely happen first is that the Afghan communities living abroad might try to move to the European Union.”
The EU has sought to reform its migration system after a crisis in 2015-2016, when more than a million people arrived, most crossing the Balkans on foot to reach northern Europe.
The EU is now better at returning migrants who do not have a valid asylum claim to their country of origin, Mr Leggeri said.
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Afghan migration could become entangled in Europe’s dispute with Belarus, which the EU accuses of flying in migrants from the Middle East to send them illegally across the border, causing a 1,500 percent spike in irregular arrivals into Lithuania.
Minsk denies fostering illegal migration but says Europe must lift sanctions if it wants it to stop.
“What happened with Belarus clearly opened the eyes of everybody,” Mr Leggeri said.
“The way of pushing in migrants deliberately…Criminal networks want to make money but state organisations, they want to deal with geopolitics and this is another story.
“It depends on geopolitical factors whether, let’s say, the crisis in Afghanistan from a migration perspective might be linked to the crisis we have in Belarus.”
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