EU’s migration commissioner in Athens for talks on migration pact, returns policy

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The European Union’s new commissioner for migration and internal affairs, Magnus Brunner, was in Athens on Thursday for policy talks with Greece, which has long been one of the major entry points into the bloc for migrants.

Brunner, an Austrian conservative who took up the post late last year, has previously spoken about a need to bolster EU policy on deportations, a controversial issue within the bloc’s 27 member nations. EU lawmakers last year approved a major overhaul of migration laws collectively known as the Pact on Migration and Asylum.

“There are some things to do, of course, some things ahead of us. Implementing the Pact is one of them,” Brunner told Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the start of their meeting. “But the topic of returns also is something we have to deliver, definitely. And we will deliver, hopefully. I’m still optimistic even though I just started.”

Greece, which is among several EU members seeking tougher immigration controls, has taken a hard line on migration, with the government insisting it implements a “strict but fair” policy that cracks down on illegal migration and smuggling networks.

But it has also come under intense criticism for deporting recently arrived migrants without giving them the chance to apply for asylum – a process known as “pushbacks,” which the government vehemently denies it engages in.

“Greece is a country that has found itself on the forefront of the migration crisis for many, many years,” Mitsotakis said. “We’re happy with the progress that has been made at the European level in terms of a rebalancing of our overall European migration policy towards the protection of the external borders, with significant emphasis on returns, but also by placing a lot of focus on legal pathways to migration.”

Brunner was also meeting with Greece’s ministers for migration, maritime affairs and foreign affairs, ahead of travelling to Cyprus for meetings with officials there on Friday.

Brunner’s visit to Athens comes days after a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights found that Greece illegally deported a woman back to neighboring Turkey, and described pushbacks as being systematic. The decision could impact how Europe handles migrants at its borders. Frontline EU member states receive financial support from Brussels to handle illegal migration.

The court awarded damages of 20,000 euros ($21,000) to the woman, a Turkish national identified by her initials A.R.E., ruling she had been improperly expelled in 2019 after crossing into Greece, with no opportunity to make an asylum claim.

“The court considered that there were strong indications to suggest that there had existed, at the time of the events alleged, a systematic practice of ‘pushbacks’ of third-country nationals by the Greek authorities, from the Evros region (on the Greek border) to Turkey,” the decision said.

Greece registered more than 60,000 illegal arrivals of migrants last year, an increase of nearly 50% from 2023. It seeks direct funding from the EU to pay for the planned expansion of a border wall along the land frontier with Turkey.