France UNHCR advises against the return of asylum-seekers to Greece

April 21, 2008

Comment: A small article the French daily ‘Le Monde’ denounces the fundamental flaws of the asylum system in Greece which leads to a systematic detention for asylum-seekers before the clarification of their situation, even in the case of vulnerable groups such as minors. For this reason, the UNHCR has asked the European Members to avoid transferring asylum-seekers to Greece.

“The credibility of the Dublin 2 regulation consists of the existence of homogenous criteria. But significant differences exist between the members of the European Union”, UNHCR spokesman for Europe; William Spindler.

As underlined in the article, Greece receives a lot of asylum-seeking requests because of its front-door situation to access Europe and has not enough resources to deal with them. But still, best practices should be taken into consideration to impose a common asylum system among the European Members.