A Greek man traveling to Germany felt humiliated by the treatment he endured at a German airport; as if he was not an EU citizen of a country who is also a member of the Schengen treaty.
The man said that after his flight from Greece to Stuttgart landed, he had to wait for hours until he got clearance because he had to go through the process for travellers outside the Schengen zone.
According to German authorities, passengers who enter Germany from Greece have to go through special border control procedures as of November 12 and through May 11, 2018.
The reason for the extraordinary regulation decided by Germany’s Interior Ministry is that many irregular or illegal migrants enter Germany using fake Greek identification cards. Some of them have been suspected to belong to the Islamic State terrorist group.
Greek ID cards are easy to forge and there have been instances where Greek police have dismantled rings that make and sell fake ID cards.
In a long post on Facebook on November 15, George J. Anastasopoulos described at length his “humiliating” experience and posted pictures from the waiting line at Arrivals:
“Greece is literally out of the Schengen zone as Germany decided, and the Greek government is watching passively.
Yesterday I traveled from Athens to Germany (Stuttgart). The situation on arrival in Germany was literally humiliating. We were driven by bus to “special” check areas outside Schengen with long queues and hours’ waiting. There were understaffed check points for non-Schengen travellers, essentially “for passengers from Greece only” and all passengers, regardless of their passport, had to suffer long-waiting queues.
The security measures taken by German police are actually treating Greece as a country outside the Schengen area. They provide for a special “quarantine” for all passengers from Greece who will land on German territory where they are subjected to strict controls, in a special area within the airports. The regulation applies from November 12, 2017 to – at least – May 11, 2018.
Aircraft from Greece land at special airport parking areas and passengers are picked up by airport buses that transfer them to special control areas that are used for the first time.
In these areas, Germany’s federal police and security services scrutinize passengers before they go to their luggage pick-up area.
Of course, a respectable government, and I mean the Greek one, would react immediately to such measures and impose the same for flights arriving in Greece from Germany, (see eg how the Turkish government responded instantly with an equivalent to the US decision to suspend visa issuance to Turkish citizens).
But for Merkel’s stationers in Athens, the Greek left-wing government, it is all well, as their national pride and sense of independence are on long vacation. Really, what is the position of New Democracy on this? Is it all well also?
I felt ashamed yesterday … A undiscribable shame and dismay, not for the ungraceful behavior of the Germans, but for the absence of the slightest reaction from the Greek side. The government of slaves.
PS1. And I do not want to hear that the Germans are right because we do not guard our borders. It was not us who publicly summoned 800,000 illegal immigrants through Merkel’s policy and the NGOs, “let everybody come in and do as they please.”
PS2. Smiling, I asked, the German to stamp my passport but he did not accept it!
PS3. For those making transit flights, stay away from Germany, there is a great chance of missing your connecting flights, apart from the discomfort.
PS4. The photo is taken from the middle of the line, there are as many passengers behind me!”
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