Greece given one month to improve refugee conditions

The EU has given Greece one month to improve conditions for asylum seekers in the hope of eventually sending more refugees back to Greece.

The plan to overhaul Greece’s migration and asylum system is part of the EU’s effort to get to grips with the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war, amid apocalyptic warnings that the union is falling apart.

The European commission issued Athens with a list of instructions on Wednesday to bring Greece into line with EU norms on refugee policy, including improving living conditions for asylum seekers and overhauling judicial procedures so people denied leave to remain have the right to appeal. Reception centres must ensure adequate staffing, so Greek authorities can deal with more asylum cases, the commission said.

Member states are being urged to step up their efforts to manage the refugee crisis, with the EU warning that the the individual countries are reacting too slowly as thousands of refugees continue to reach Europe.

As numbers swell, the European Commission berated countries for sharing too few asylum-seekers and failing to deport people who are not eligible to stay.

The appeal — one of many that often have fallen on deaf ears — comes a week before EU leaders meet to discuss how effective their efforts are, amid deep divisions over how to manage the influx.

"Efficiency on the ground is lacking. We have lost time," warned the EU's top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos.

A Commission report said teams of EU technical experts, dubbed hotspots, that are meant to quickly register and fingerprint people to establish if they could be eligible for asylum, are still not working properly.

After the program launched in September, only one of five hotspots is working in Greece, while two of six are operational in Italy.

This failure means fewer than 500 asylum-seekers in those two countries have been shared among other EU countries in six months. The plan is meant to distribute 160,000 asylum-seekers over two years.

Italy and Greece were also targeted for failing to deport enough people. Italy deported 14,000 people last year, as 160,000 people arrived. Greece sent back almost 20,000, but more than 800,000 entered. Balkans countries were supposed to provide shelters for 50,000 people along the migration route north in time for winter, but far less than half are in place.

In a draft statement prepared for their Feb. 18-19 summit, seen by The Associated Press, EU leaders will acknowledge, as they have often before, that past agreements "should be implemented rapidly."

"It does not make sense to organize a summit if you do not intend to solve anything," lamented Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberal bloc in the European Parliament.