Observations

The EU has serious questions to answer

Facts4EU.Org has been aware for years of stories coming from Greece of potentially illegal actions in dealing with its continuing illegal migrant crisis.

Now we have a serious report with evidence from reputable news organisations who have had the funding to investigate this over many months. This story was run by Der Spiegel, Le Monde, German state broadcaster ARD, Swiss magazine Republik, Lighthouse Reports, Bellingcat, and Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi.

The reporters tracked the positions of Frontex units and compared them with position data from pushbacks recorded by NGOs and migrants. They interviewed witnesses, refugees and Frontex staff. They viewed internal documents and dozens of videos and satellite photos.

There seems little doubt that the EU – and the Greeks – have serious questions to answer.

And has anyone mentioned the hypocrisy of the EU in attacking the UK over its own plans?

Priti Patel and the Home Office have looked at each and every way to prevent the growing armada of boats containing illegal migrants departing the shores of northern France in rapidly escalating numbers, making for the United Kingdom. The lack of any progress in stemming this tide has been deeply frustrating for the majority of the British public.

Despite the tens of millions of pounds thrown at the French, they seem unable – or perhaps unwilling – to take the steps necessary to secure their northern border.

Last year the UK Government’s plan was to turn these boats around. This attracted howls of criticism from the French, the EU, Rejoiner MPs, and ‘human rights’ organisations in the UK and elsewhere.

Now we find that the Greeks – with the complicity of the EU’s own border and coastguard agency – have been carrying out these operations for the last two years. The journalists working on this story even found cases where migrants had landed in Greece, and were then put into small dinghies and set adrift.

So far one head has rolled – by his own volition – and Fabrice Leggeri will not be held accountable. His accusation against the EU, however, for changing the mandate of its border agency with no discussion or agreement, may be a story that runs and runs.

Three Facts4EU.Org team members worked on this report in the early hours of Sunday morning

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