Asia and Africa conquer Europe. Greece runs out of patience

The European Union is no longer capable of dealing with the influx of illegal migrants. The Greek authorities are planning to build the "great Greek wall" - a 200 kilometer-long fence along the border with Turkey. Greek Minister of Citizen Protection Christos Paputsis stated January 27 that the wall would be built to protect Greece and other European countries from illegal migrants.

According to the minister, the Greek government established cooperation with Europe's Frontex border monitoring agency. The country also plans to modernize the national coast guards and create a barrier on land frontiers to prevent the intrusion of illegal migrants, the official added.

The official did not specify, when the "great Greek wall" was going to be built and how much local tax payers would have to pay for it.

On January 27, France approved the intention of the Greek authorities to suppress illegal migration. French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux backed the project to build a 12.5km wall at a critical section of the Greece-Turkish border.

It goes without saying that the idea of building the fence on the border between Turkey and Greece sparked criticism among human rights organizations. Many activists said that Greece announced the intention to rebuilt the Berlin Wall.

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Tens and hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants from Asian and African countries travel to EU countries via Greece every year. Christos Paputsis said that Greece would no longer be capable of handling the situation with illegal immigrants.

"Greece could no longer tolerate this. The Greek society has exceeded its limit in its capacity to accommodate illegal immigrants. This is the hard reality and we have an obligation to the Greek citizen to deal with it," the minister said.

Greece, the official added, would only keep the migrants who have the rights for international protection and shelter. All other illegals will have to be deported from the country, the minister said.

Officially, not less than 200 people cross the border between Greece and Turkey on a daily basis, despite mine fields and armed border guards. This is just a tip of the iceberg, and the number of illegal immigrants is much larger.

The problem was not very serious before, but Greece is standing on the brink of default now, and the influx of immigrants can only aggravate the situation.

Greece had to think about the problem after thousands of immigrants participated in massive anti-governmental actions in the country, demanding various allowances and residence permits. They united with leftist radicals and occupied the University of Athens, which became opposition headquarters.

The author of this article has recently been to Greece and could see that immigrants in Athens were plentiful indeed. Some of them try to work on a legal bases, whereas many others do not want to do it at all. There is another category. One can see people representing numerous ethnic criminal groups in the center of Athens selling drugs in the streets.

There are many prostitutes, presumably black females, in the Greek capital - they mostly come from third world countries. The mass influx of Albanians has also become a very serious problem for Greece. Native Greeks say that they are being expelled from their own country by the Albanian drug mafia.

Will the wall stop those who cross mine fields? Illegals come to Europe mostly by boat, and coastal guards are simply unable of stopping all of them. Greece is not the only transit country, which illegal immigrants use to make their way to Europe. Many of them find themselves in the European Union via Spain and Italy. Italy is a popular destination among immigrants from Libya. Italy used to ask Libya's Gaddafi to take measures to change the situation for the better, but he only referred to numerous difficulties and asked for 5 billion euros form the European Union to solve the problem with immigrants.

It is clear that no walls in the world will stop immigrants from overpopulated Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, not to mention troubled African countries. The wall built on the border between the USA and Mexico did not stop millions of Latin American immigrants.

There is a short list of radical measures, which can solve the problem. Will the European Union, being the stronghold of human rights, ever dare to resort to those measures? It seems that it will happen sooner or later. Otherwise, European countries run the risk of having Asian and African problems on their territories.

Sergei Balmasov
Pravda.Ru

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