Greece’s Border (De)fence

natalie hamill, 8 February 2012

By Lucy Hatton

On Monday, the Greek Government announced its remarkable plans to construct a fence along its border with Turkey in order to curb illegal immigration into the EU, a move the European Commission has denounced as ‘pointless’.

Each year, thousands of illegal immigrants cross the border between Greece and Turkey in an attempt to enter the EU. Once inside, they can move freely around those countries that are part of the Schengen Agreement as there are no visa requirements or border checks between these countries. An average of 245 individuals a day cross over the border and it is estimated that up to 90% of all of the EU’s illegal immigrants have travelled through Greece into the EU. In January this year, 2,800 migrants attempted the crossing between the two countries in the Evros region in eastern Greece, yet this is not even half of the numbers that attempt the migration in the peak months of the summer when upwards of 6,000 people can cross through to Europe from the Middle East. 2011 saw an increase in immigration over the Greek-Turkish border of 17% on the 2010 figures, with over 55,000 attempts detected. Immigration across this particular border is clearly a formidable issue.

So what is the Greek Government’s answer to the problem? A four metre high, six mile long, razor wire fence on the border between the villages of Kastanies and Nea Vyssa in the Evros region. The Evros is a river that forms the major part of the 125 mile border between the two countries, and the fence is designed to block a dry land gap in the border. The fence will also be equipped with a network of night-vision CCTV cameras that will be linked up to a local police command centre. This simplistic solution may appear ingenious, but when the cost of the construction of the fence and its potential effectiveness is considered, one has to question whether this really is the right solution to the problem.

The estimated cost of the project is over €3 million (£2.5 million). With talks currently underway in the EU on a further Greek bailout, the question that springs to mind is how Greece is financing this fence when they are teetering on the edge of defaulting on their enormous debts and have implemented many strict austerity measures. The European Commission has refused to finance the construction – a spokesperson for Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström confirmed that Greece had applied for the Commission to co-finance the project but that the Commissioner had declined to do so as she deemed the measure ‘pointless’. The EU has continually funded border control measures for Greece, amounting to €215 million between 2007 and 2010, and a further €90 million has been earmarked for the purpose in 2012, along with a continued supply of border guards and patrols from the Frontex agency.

Earlier this week, protestors in the area of the proposed fence condemned the Government’s decision to spend its limited money in this way and questioned the potential success of the fence in halting the flow of migrants. Greek Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis warned “traffickers should know that this route will be closed to them … their life is about to get much harder”. The crossing is hardly an easy feat without the fence: in May 2011 immigrant smugglers opened fire on border guards in the Evros region and three potential immigrants lost their lives to hypothermia in January this year whilst attempting the crossing. I am sure that these people don’t see their passage as void of obstacles and are therefore unlikely to be deterred by one section of wire fencing which spans less than 5% of the whole length of the border.

Whilst it is impossible to predict whether the fence will have the desired effect of deterring illegal immigrants from entering the EU, I think it is reasonable to speculate that one very expensive fence is not the best use of limited Greek funds at this time. As the attempted crossings from Africa so sadly illustrate every year, there are thousands of migrants prepared to risk their lives to try and gain access to the EU – over 50,000 illegal immigrants from Africa undertake the perilous journey to the Italian island of Lampedusa each year, and many don’t survive. I doubt that a short length of wire fencing will be enough to significantly reduce the numbers of immigrants attempting the Greece-Turkey border crossing. Wire cutters anyone?