The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the Greek government have signed a deal that will see the number of EU personnel responsible for supervising and processing the cases of tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Greece double, an EASO press release on Tuesday stated
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th January, 2020) The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the Greek government have signed a deal that will see the number of EU personnel responsible for supervising and processing the cases of tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Greece double, an EASO press release on Tuesday stated.
The plans were formalized after EASO signed operating plans with the national asylum authorities of Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Malta in December. Tuesday's deal between EASO and the Greek government, also known as a seat agreement, sees the EU asylum authority pledge to increase staff numbers in Greece from roughly 500 to over 1,000.
"EASO has been continuously increasing its operational support and cooperation with the Greek authorities since 2011. We have already started further expanding our support in the country in these weeks, and today's agreement gives us the needed administrative and legal framework to do so effectively," EASO Executive Director Nina Gregori said in the release.
EASO will bolster the number of support staff, administrators, researchers, and in particular, caseworkers. According to the press release, the number of caseworkers on the Greek mainland will triple from approximately 30 to 100. On the Greek islands, often the first landing point for asylum seekers, the number of caseworkers will double from roughly 100 to 200.
The asylum office will also increase its financial commitment to its Greek operations by approximately 8.5 million Euros ($9.3 million), as according to the plans, EASO will spend at least 36 million euros on managing asylum cases in Greece this year.
According to a statistical report compiled by the EU's statistical office Eurostat, there were 90,200 pending asylum cases filed in Greece that were still waiting to be processed as of September 2019. Only Germany and Spain have a higher number of unresolved asylum cases.
Greece has been become a hub of refugee and asylum seeker activity in recent years, particularly after the outbreak of hostilities in Syria. Many asylum seekers seek to enter the EU in Greece, either traveling overland or by sea from Turkey. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 74,613 refugees and migrants arrived in Greece in 2019.
