German minister: Berlin gives aid that mayorsof hotspot islands refuse

In a question about the situation in the hotspots of the Greek islands, Thomas de Maizière expressed the view that the conditions for refugees on the mainland and the islands are different.

"The EU and Germany have provided enormous ancillary services, money is available. Assistance is offered but most of the time it is not taken advantage of by the mayors of the islands," the German minister said, adding that he assumed that the mayors were seeking to increase the pressure so that refugees would be transferred to mainland Greece where there is available housing .

The minister, according to Deutsche Welle, mentioned the EU-Turkey agreement as the main cause of the living conditions prevailing in reception centers such as in Moria, Lesvos. The agreement provides that Ankara accepts only refugees from Greece whose asylum procedures have been completed in the islands. The EU has sent asylum specialists to the islands, but procedures have to be speeded up, de Maizière said.

Regarding the EU refugee relocation program, he assured that Germany will honor the commitment it has undertaken and will welcome all the refugees from Greece.

Presenting the 2017 refugee data, the German minister spoke of a significant reduction in the number of asylum seekers. While around 890,000 people had claimed asylum in Germany, in 2015,  and around 280,000 in 2016, the number dropped to 186,600 in 2017. The largest group of asylum seekers are people from Syria (47,434), followed by Iraq (21,043), Afghanistan (12,346) and Eritrea (9524). Almost 8,000 asylum seekers last year had Turkish citizenship.

Finally, de Maizière described the European asylum system as ineffective and stressed the need for a new system to combat the reasons people leave their country, improve the protection of the EU's external borders and a first examination of asylum applications outside the EU territory.