Germany has decided to start returning newly arrived asylum seekers to Greece starting in mid-March, according to an interior ministry spokesperson, effectively reversing a five-year suspension of such transfers owing to the poor conditions there. Berlin is likely to reinstate a rule obliging refugees to stay in the first European country they enter and start returning them to Greece if it was their first location in the European Union, a German Interior Ministry spokesman said in an interview with AFP. “In line with the recommendation from the European Commission, Germany believes that such transfers will be possible from March 15th,” said the spokesman, Tobias Plate. The plan was met with criticism from Athens voiced by Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas saying that the current legal framework was “unable to respond to the historic migration flows and leaves the burden to the member states that migrants first arrive in.”

Meanwhile, German refugees rights group has warned that the decision could put additional strain on Greece that is far from being fully recovered from a deep debt and economic crisis. About 62,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded in Greece after a series of border closures further north early last year and the subsequent controversial deal between the EU and Turkey to stem flows. Her decision to suspend EU rules on registering asylum seekers in the first EU state they entered was aimed at the growing number of Syrians fleeing the conflict in their country, but large numbers of people of other nationalities made the journey too.
Germany announces plans to start deporting newly-arrived migrants to Greece starting in March. According to EU's Dublin Regulation, asylum seekers must file for asylum in the member state they arrived in.