Greece

Reports on Tuesday are claiming that a second former Turkish soldier seeking asylum in Greece has had his application accepted. The Greek Asylum Committee reportedly approved the application after deliberations last Friday in Greece's Council of State. Tuesday's decision would make him...

Greek asylum service employees on short-term contracts have launched a two-day strike to protest what they say are months-long delays in their salary payments. Their union says they have not been paid for two or three months. A union statement...

Nearly 12,000 relocations have already been carried out in EU countries, while another 2,500 relocations will be held in the next period, Migration Policy Minister Yiannis Mouzalas said on Friday in Parliament. "The system has become more efficient," Mouzalas underlined...

About 10,000 asylum seekers, mainly Afghanis, will remain in Greece, the Director of the country’s asylum service Maria Stavropoulou said on Monday, speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Athens titled, “Dimensions of the refugee issue and the...

Turmoil prevails at the Moria hotspot on Lesvos on Monday. A large number of migrants, mostly from Pakistan, are protesting over the long stay and delays over the examination of asylum applications. Asylum Service employees abandoned the premises that the...

The Greek Asylum Service received 4,288 asylum applications in May alone, most of them from migrants landing illegally on the Aegean islands. According to the service, a total of 2,858 asylum claims were filed by migrants who arrived on the...

All the islands will have fully developed asylum services to handle migration flows by the end of June, the Greek spokesman for the government's refugee policy coordinating body George Kyritsis said on Wednesday. This will help decongest the islands...

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker appointed on Friday Dutch economist Maarten Verwey to act as the EU Coordinator of the refugee crisis in Greece, according to a Commission press release. The EU will provide Greece at short notice with the...

"The current situation is far beyond the capabilities of the Asylum Service," Maria Stavropoulou, head of the Service said in an interview to Athens-Macedonian News Agency. She referred to staff shortages that have led the Regional Asylum Office in Attica to...

Greece's asylum service said in an announcement that present staffing levels made it "objectively difficult to serve all applicants," in spite of making every possible effort to reduce waiting times. The announcement was issued in response to a protest rally...

Five key Greek ministries on Monday decided that the country will re-introduce the practice of granting a social security number to all migrants who have applied for asylum in Greece, something that the current conservative government had stopped doing...

The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) recently decided to double the number of its personnel in Greece and significantly increase its funding to assist the country in its efforts to speed up procedures for granting or rejecting political asylum. Currently...

Greek MPs in the early hours of Friday approved a government bill aimed at easing pressure on the Aegean islands by speeding up asylum procedures and returns of migrants to Turkey, despite warnings by rights organizations describing it as...

The Greek government is planning to tighten up procedures for providing free health care and other benefits to thousands of migrants and asylum seekers. According to a circular issued this week to all state agencies by the Labor Ministry, the...

The Turkish Interior Ministry on Tuesday included the eight servicemen who fled to Greece the day after the 2016 uprising to their list of "wanted" suspects. The move is seen as highly provocative, especially as it coincides with the official...