Griekenland bang voor migratiestroom door toetreding Bulgarije tot Schengen (en)
EUOBSERVER / ORESTIADA - An EU support mission operating on Greece's border with Turkey has helped stem last year's tide of irregular immigrants, but officials are nervous that Bulgarian entry into the visa-free Schengen Agreement could see activity return to Europe's south-eastern corner.
One man at the coalface who witnessed the dramatic upsurge in border crossings in 2010 is Brigadier General Salamagkas Georgios, head of the police directorate of Orestiada - the small Greek town beside the country's short stretch of land border with its large eastern neighbour.
"We faced a huge problem, a humanitarian crisis. That's why we asked for the help of Frontex," Georgios told EUobserver in a recent interview, referring to the EU agency which oversees member state co-operation in the field of border control.
In 2010, roughly 47,000 irregular immigrants - 90 percent of the EU total that year - were arrested after crossing the 200 kilometre Greek border with Turkey, a frontier for the most part demarcated by the River Evros.
Attracted to Turkey by a plethora of visa-free agreements signed between Turkey and several north African and Middle East states, over half that number opted to cross at the 12.5 kilometre land border with Greece close to Orestiada, the location for the planned building of a controversial fence.
"The border crossing there is very easy, they took advantage of it. The fence is one of the measures which can help," said Georgios.
But numbers have already dropped from over 7,600 last October to around 1,600 in February of this year, largely thanks to Frontex's Rabit operation which saw some 175 police officers from EU member states join the front line between November 2010 to March 2011. Another Frontex operation - Poseidon Land 2011 - will run on the Greek-Turkish border until the end of this year.
Greater surveillance on the strip of land border has now pushed immigrants seeking a better quality of life further south, assisted by people traffickers who charge as little as €200.
"All the immigrants that now come into our country are moved by organised facilitators, crime organizations," said the police chief. "They take them to the river's shore and release them in plastic boats." At least 48 immigrants drowned in the River Evros last year, with a further 12 perishing from hypothermia.
Those that make it across all face ongoing difficulties, with Greece receiving strong criticism from human rights groups about the conditions in the country's detention centres where irregular immigrants are place for screening. Over 50 percent originate from Afghanistan, with others coming from Morocco, Algeria and Somalia, amongst other places.
"In 2010 we had a very difficult situation, the large arrests did result in poor conditions in the camps. Now that the numbers are lower, the conditions are greatly improved," said Georgios.
Others argue that more improvement is still needed. "Even if Greece is undertaking important reform efforts, the country has not had a functioning asylum system for several years and time, resources and EU solidarity will be needed," Ana Fontal of the European Council of Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) told this website.
"Many people have no choice but to sleep rough in Athens and elsewhere," she added, pointing to the shortage of space in the Greece's detention centres.
Bulgaria
As well as the Frontex missions, the series of recent revolutions in northern Africa and renewed migratory flows to Italy's southern island of Lampedusa have further served to reduce pressure on Greece's eastern border.
Officials fear activity could shortly return to the area, however. North of Orestiada, Bulgaria shares a 209 kilometre land border with Turkey, with Sofia pressing hard to join the visa-free Schengen Agreement later this year. Membership is expected to increase the attractiveness of Bulgaria as an entry point into the EU.
MEPs in the European Parliament's Civil Liberties committee on Monday (2 May) said the government had made sufficient preparations for the country to join, but underlined the need for additional measures to be taken in the Bulgaria-Turkey-Greece area to cope with a possible surge in migration pressures.
Recently the centre-right government announced plans to build a fence along the country's border with Turkey, citing the need to keep out wild animals after a case of foot-and-mouth disease was detected in Bulgaria, though to have a originated from a wild boar from Turkey.
Turkish officials have questioned Bulgarian motives for the fence however, with one EU member state official saying Sofia was "extremely nervous" about a potential wave of immigration.
Nataliya Nikolova, a scholar linked to the Network Migration platform, says Sofia has steadily been making preparations in recent years, including the building of several detention centres.
"Bulgarian authorities have started to be very restrictive to third country nationals and refugees ... The will of the government is to please the EU," she said.