Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Migration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris proposed that the European Union create an emergency mechanism allowing member states to temporarily suspend the acceptance of asylum applications during sudden migration crises.
Plevris presented the plan at a meeting with the EU home affairs ministers in Luxembourg on October 1, which would apply when migration flows are used as a “hybrid threat: at the EU’s external borders.
Here, once a crisis is certified, it would allow asylum applications to be paused, returns to be fast-tracked, and Frontex – the European Border and Coast Guard Agency – to be deployed immediately, according to Greek news platform Prime News.
The Mediterranean EU member would seek the measure to be included in the Commission’s upcoming emergency migration framework.
At the same meeting, ministers gave final approval to a new return regulation aimed at increasing deportations of people with no right to stay in the EU. Irish Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said “around two in three people ordered to leave the EU do not actually leave.”
The plan followed July’s mass arrivals in Spain’s Ceuta enclave, which exposed pressure on existing emergency procedures.
Read more: Humanitarian situation in Ceuta remains dire, aid workers say
While Plevris argued that the EU’s migration pact, which took effect in June, has improved the bloc’s ability to manage migration, he stressed it does not give governments enough tools for major crises. “In such cases, there should be enhanced border surveillance and suspension of asylum,” he said before the Luxembourg meeting.
The regulation creates a European Return Order and stronger cooperation requirements for people facing removal, while allowing member states to set up deportation centres outside the bloc, known as return hubs, through agreements with non-EU countries.
Unaccompanied minors are excluded from those arrangements, and the return reforms are separate from Greece’s asylum suspension proposal.
A divided response
Several governments signaled openness to Greece’s idea, with Dutch Migration Minister Bart van den Brink having supported the exploration of different rules for extreme border events, noting the situation should be handled as border management issues instead of standard asylum cases.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt argued that normal asylum procedures cannot apply when a mass influx is driven by smuggling and disinformation rather than humanitarian need, and Austria’s Gerhard Karner said arrivals of tens of thousands of young men in a single day had nothing to do with asylum.
Belgian Migration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt also called for “no taboos” on making returns more effective, while Poland, which suspended asylum claims at its border with Belarus in March 2025, is also among the supporters.
Days before the October 1 meeting, the European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, endorsed suspending the right to seek asylum in response to “hybrid attacks”, in which third countries push migrants toward EU borders to destabilise them.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had already announced the emergency framework in her State of the Union speech in September, saying it would be triggered only under strictly defined criteria and would allow time-limited flexibility.
However, EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner stressed that any emergency system must comply with international law. Current EU rules allow people inside member states to request asylum and receive individual assessments.
Critics say the plan crosses a legal red line. The UN refugee agency has warned that returning people without examining their claims would breach the principle of non-refoulement, which bars sending anyone back to a place where they face torture or threats to their life.
Italian Socialist MEP Cecilia Strada also told Euronews it would mean “dismantling another piece of EU values”, arguing that “exceptional circumstances” are an excuse to justify illegal pushbacks.
Migrant rights groups including the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) warn that people could be sent back to violence or death.
The European Court of Human Rights has previously ruled against Greece, Lithuania and Poland over collective expulsions, and French MEP Damien Carême of The Left has said he is ready to take legal action
Ceuta, Crete surges raise pressure
Spain estimates more than 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta during the late-July surge. Most later returned, while about 10,000 remain in the enclave.
Greece knows such emergencies well. It was on the front line of the 2015-2016 crisis, when more than a million people from the Middle East and Africa crossed into Europe.
Read more: As Europe closes its doors, this Lesvos exhibition remembers the island that welcomed refugees
In March 2020, after Turkey said it would no longer stop migrants heading for Europe, thousands gathered at the Evros land border, and Athens suspended asylum applications for a month, for which it was praised as the EU’s “shield”.
More recently, the pressure has shifted south. In July 2025, Greece suspended asylum claims for three months for people arriving by sea from North Africa, after a spike in boats from Libya to Crete. Weekly crossings had peaked at more than 2,500 and the UN refugee agency expressed deep concern about the move.
The Libya-Crete route has stayed busy this year, with more than 22,000 undocumented individuals reaching Greece by late August, nearly 12,000 of them from Libya. Around the same time, the Migration Ministry began transferring people rescued off Crete to reception centres on Lesvos and Samos to ease pressure on the island.
Meanwhile, asylum applications across Europe have continued falling since 2023. Around 332,000 people applied during 2026’s first half across EU countries, Switzerland and Norway. That total was 17% lower than during the same period in 2025.
Featured image: Refugees approach the Greek island of Lesvos
Source: Steve Evans via Flickr
Author: Steve Evans
Creative Commons Licenses
