Greece has formally called on the European Union to establish a European emergency migration mechanism that would allow member states to temporarily suspend asylum applications and carry out accelerated returns when confronted with organized mass migration used as a tool of geopolitical pressure.
According to government sources, Migration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris presented the proposal during the extraordinary meeting of EU Interior and Migration Ministers, arguing that existing EU migration rules are insufficient to address cases of hybrid attacks through migration flows.
The Greek initiative follows the recent migration crisis in Spain’s enclave of Ceuta and draws directly on Greece’s experience during the 2020 Evros border crisis, when Athens accused Turkey of encouraging thousands of migrants to attempt to cross into Greek territory.
An Emergency Framework for Hybrid Migration Threats
Under the Greek proposal, the European Union would establish a dedicated emergency mechanism activated whenever mass migration is deliberately organized or facilitated by third countries or criminal networks to destabilize an EU member state.
The proposed framework would allow:
- temporary suspension of new asylum applications under exceptional circumstances;
- accelerated return procedures for individuals without protection status;
- implementation fully consistent with EU and international law;
- automatic operational, financial and technical support for the affected frontline member state.
Ceuta Reopens the European Debate
The unprecedented migrant surge in Ceuta has reignited discussions across Europe about the growing use of migration as an instrument of political coercion.
Athens argues that such events should no longer be treated solely as humanitarian or migration management challenges but as hybrid security threats requiring exceptional European responses.
Aligned with Mitsotakis’ European StrategyPlevris’ intervention closely follows Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ opinion article in Politico, in which he called for a new EU legal framework to respond to the weaponization of migration.
Together, the two initiatives signal Greece’s effort to transform the Evros precedent into a permanent European policy, arguing that protecting the Union’s external borders has become a matter of collective European security rather than the sole responsibility of frontline states.
Athens is seeking more than changes to migration policy—it is attempting to redefine how the European Union responds to hybrid threats. By linking Evros (2020), the Belarus border crisis (2021) and Ceuta (2026), Greece is building the case for an EU-wide emergency instrument that combines border protection, rapid returns and European solidarity whenever migration is deliberately used as a geopolitical weapon
Source: pagenews.gr