Spotlight: EU migrant crisis above all a refugee crisis

Even as the European Parliament debated once more on Wednesday the necessity to reform and harmonize European asylum rights, the number of refugees stuck in Greece continues to rise closer to 55,000 people, according to government figures.

More than two months after the deal between Ankara and Brussels meant to allow for a "better management of the migratory crisis" was concluded, it already seems null and void.

The European Union (EU) and Turkey have cancelled their high-level bilateral meeting scheduled for May 13, notably during which the question of the liberalization of visas for Turkish citizens should have been discussed.

Many have raised their voices to denounce the deal on migrants reached on March 18 between Turkey and the EU. To begin with, procedures for the right of asylum speak more to theory than to practice. In Thessaloniki, for example, Greek authorities have only had the possibility to file 25 to 30 requests per day.

Regarding the plan adopted in September 2015 which provided for the resettlement over two years of 160,000 people, mostly from Greece and Italy, eight months later, this has led to the resettlement of 1,441 people (565 coming from Italy and 876 from Greece), according to official figures.

Tomas Bocek, special representative of the secretary general of the Council of Europe for migrations and refugees, on Wednesday said he was concerned by information indicating measures taken for mass expulsion and by allegations of poor treatment by Macedonian border guards.

"We cannot understand the situation unless we are on the ground. We are confronted with a migratory crisis," Daniel Esdras, head of the Athens office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told Xinhua.

While in Brussels and in Strasbourg, people go into linguistic battles on the use of the term "migrants" or "refugees," in the Idomeni camp in northern Greece, humanitarian personnel are alarmed about the risks of a "sanitary time bomb" with the arrival of summer temperatures.

On a continent which has progressively been transformed into a fortress, the pursuit of hardening migratory policy by many member states comes as no surprise.

What has been revealed with the arrival of the refugees are not veritable problems in terms of logistics or finances, but rather political considerations, guided by internal pressures and national egos within the EU states.

This is to the detriment of refugees, certainly, but also for the values claimed by the EU, as well as international law.

According to official figures, some 135 persons coming from Turkey have been resettled in European countries since the latest EU-Turkey agreement.

The majority were settled in four countries: 54 in Germany, 34 in Sweden, 31 in the Netherlands and 11 in Finland. Five refugees have also been settled in Lithuania, the only country in Eastern Europe to have undertaken the resettlement.

The means and personnel being deployed do not match the urgency of the situation: only 63 interpreters out of 470 requested, and 67 asylum experts out of 472 requested, have currently been sent to Greece. Of the 30 magistrates requested, not one has been accorded as of now.

To remedy the situation, the EU must first recognize that it finds itself confronted with a refugee crisis, not one of migrants, and respect both its commitments and responsibilities. Endit