Refugees return to Greece in March

Germany has decided to start returning newly arrived asylum seekers to Greece starting in mid-March, according to an interior ministry spokesperson, effectively reversing a five-year suspension of such transfers owing to the poor conditions there. Under the European Union’s so-called Dublin rules, would-be refugees must file for asylum in the first member-state of the bloc […]

Germany has decided to start returning newly arrived asylum seekers to Greece starting in mid-March, according to an interior ministry spokesperson, effectively reversing a five-year suspension of such transfers owing to the poor conditions there.
Under the European Union’s so-called Dublin rules, would-be refugees must file for asylum in the first member-state of the bloc they enter – often Greece, Italy or Bulgaria.
If asylum seekers have travelled on to other EU nations, they are to be returned to their first port of call.
But that requirement was halted for Greece in 2011, which together with Italy has been the main point of entry for the more than one million migrants who have entered the bloc since 2015, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
A German interior ministry spokesman told AFP news agency that Germany would reinstate the Dublin rule in two months’ time and return newly-arrived asylum seekers to their first EU port of call.