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EU threatens Greece over “serious” neglect of its border

refugeeraftThe big guns are still focused on Greece which has been told it could be quarantined from the rest of the EU because of its “serious” border neglect.

A European Commission report said that Greece had “seriously neglected” its borders during the migrant crisis last year.

"The draft report concludes that Greece seriously neglected its obligations and that there are serious deficiencies occurring out of border controls that must be overcome," commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis told a press conference.

The report is based on an evaluation mission in November on the Greek-Turkish land border and several islands in the Aegean Sea, the principal entrance to Europe for hundreds of thousands of migrants last year from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the 28 EU member states adopt the report, the Commission will create an “action plan” to strengthen Greek borders, particularly the sea border with Turkey.

"Greece will then have three months to implement actions," Mr Dombrovskis said.

He said the mission found that Greece failed to do sufficient registering and fingerprinting of migrants who entered Greece from Turkey.

Had the EU managed to agree anything resembling a coherent policy on refugees and migrants, it might have been easier for Greece to implement, even with the crippling austerity programme forced on it.

In the last few months, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France and non-EU member Norway have all introduced temporary border controls for six months because of the migrant crisis.

They did so in order to deal with large numbers of migrants still on the move mostly from Greece towards Germany and Sweden

Robert Fico, Slovakian prime minister, on Wednesday said the EU was committing "ritual suicide" with its migration policy.

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