In an interview with Open, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, Minister of Immigration and Asylum, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, spoke about the developments in the migration issue, based on the data on Syria, the Greek decision to freeze the issuing of decisions on asylum applications, and the attitude of Turkey.

“The numbers matter. At this moment, or rather until the end of ’23, in European countries, that is, in the countries of the European Union, about one million Syrians were living with a residence permit. Of these, 700,000 or so were in Germany, while over 800,000 in total resided in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. In Greece, with a residence permit, we had about 14,000 by the end of ’23,” the minister said, among other things, adding concerning the decision to freeze decisions on asylum applications: “As a host country, we will first weigh how the flows are shaped. Numerically, nothing has changed in terms of inflows from Syria. We have some early indications that, by 10-11 December, if I am not mistaken, some thousands, but not hundreds of thousands – as we have heard here and there – had moved to return from Turkey, where, I recall, over 2 million are hosted.”

Panagiotopoulos stresses that there must be concrete data to decide on the next steps: “We have to wait, weigh the facts, the data on the ground, make our reassessments and have secure data to decide. When, you know, someone comes and asks for asylum, that process is not a simple matter. He cannot be granted asylum – or, in other words, be officially designated as a refugee so that he can move from Greece to another European country – based on, say, uncertain reports. There must be concrete data.”

The minister also referred to the way Greece chose to handle the issue: “‘Other countries completely froze the process. What is certain is that someone who comes to Greece through the illegal or irregular route, and applies for asylum, cannot claim that ‘I left because the Assad regime is persecuting me’. Quite simply, because the Assad regime no longer exists, it has fallen. That is why the decision-making process has been frozen – but not the submission and examination of asylum applications. He may, however, invoke something else. For example, he can say that there is still a war raging in his region and that it is too unsafe to go back because there is still fighting. Or that there is not enough security to enable him to decide to return with his family. Of course, he will have to invoke something for the competent authority to weigh up whether or not to grant him asylum. The fact is, however, that the justification for 99% of the cases until yesterday no longer applies. That is why Greece, like other European countries, has frozen the procedure until the data is re-stabilized.”

Referring to Turkey’s attitude toward the developments in Syria, the minister said that Turkey is trying to increase its influence in the region, taking advantage of the situation from many sides. “For example, the transition phase regarding the leadership of the United States. As we know, newly elected President Trump takes over in early January, while Biden steps down. So, there is a relative gap at the moment in terms of speed in assessing the facts and making decisions. It proved to be the driving force behind the fall of the Assad regime. President Trump has publicly stated this recently. Besides, the statement yesterday by Al Jolani, the leader of the new regime, was that Turkey, logically, has the primary say in the reconstruction of the country. This shows that Turkey has supported this organisation, which has jihadist origins. This is important to overthrow a mortal regime, but also highly oppressive and created all these waves of refugees.”