German chancellor Friedrich Merz‘s Conservative-Social Democrat coalition government is “giving refugees entitled to international protection in Greece who came to Germany and reapplied for asylum the opportunity to return to their country of first entry into the EU under a voluntary scheme. Refugee interest is currently extremely limited, Spiegel Online writes under the headline “14 refugees voluntarily returned to Greece.”

The website observes: “The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), in response to a Spiegel query, said only 14 people had returned to Greece by May 21. Note that, according to the German agency, nearly 100,000 refugees recognized as beneficiaries of civil protection in Greece came to Germany in the last five years.

Misleading information to refugees

Around 2,000 people in all German federal states have so far received a letter of voluntary return to Greece, with 78 of them expressing interest. In the letter, the BAMF promises the refugees that they will be picked up at the airport upon arrival in Greece, provided with accommodation with “full board” for up to four months, and then put into a Greek integration program to prepare them for the labour market.

The organisation Pro Asyl strongly criticised the letter from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. The German NGO noted that the German agency is “building palaces in the sand” and trying to force refugees to return to Greece “with misleading information and a controversial support program.”

On April 16, Germany’s Supreme Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that deportations of unmarried, healthy, able-bodied male refugees to Greece are permissible. The decision may have significant implications, as it essentially opens the way even for forced deportations to Greece, which may involve tens of thousands of refugees.”