On Tuesday (February 14) the New York Times published a report quoting the top human rights officer at Europe's border agency Frontex, who said in a confidential report that the agency "should stop working with Greece because border guards there were mistreating asylum seekers," among other claims relating to so-called illegal pushbacks which were allegedly being performed on a regular basis.

Greece's Migration Ministry subsequently released a strongly-worded statement in response to the report, once again stirring up debate about the Greek government's migration policies which have been repeatedly criticized by NGOs, human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), and media observers.

Greece's response to the report

"Greece protects and will continue to protect the external borders of the European Union, in accordance with national and international law. Protecting Europe from irregular arrivals is a priority for the European Council, as concluded. While, under the EU/Turkey joint statement such flows should be prevented before departure, smuggling networks continue to put, daily, lives at risk. This model must stop," said the Ministry.

The statement added: "The EU is working on concrete measures to safeguard Europe's security, reinforce the EU's external borders, while promoting legal pathways for eligible applicants. We work closely with the European Commission, EUAA, FRA and Frontex on all migration related issues. All allegations are being investigated by Greece and it is worth reminding about the fake allegations against Greece about a 'dead child' in Evros -- an incident reported but then retracted by the media and NGOs. Incidents investigated to-date identified no wrongdoing by Greek authorities."

According to the statement, the Ministry said that Greece has appointed a Fundamental Rights Officer and has approved an Action plan, with the EU, to monitor compliance with Fundamental rights, about which it said "progress reports on implementation have been conducted and positively assessed by the Agency in the previous Frontex Management Board in Stockholm."

'Credible reports'

In the New York Times article, the human rights officer, Jonas Grimheden, who issues confidential quarterly reports on conditions and abuses at EU borders, reportedly wrote that he had gathered continued "credible reports" about Greek authorities systematically expelling migrants at both sea and land borders, denying them access to protection, separating children from their parents and treating migrants in a degrading way.

The report said that the severity of such claims "prompted the officer to recommend suspending the operation, after he issued three escalating opinions, documenting his findings in detail, over the course of 2022," according to the documents.

This latest development in the documentation of alleged illegal practices in Greece by Frontex's human rights chief is important since it was reported by the agency itself rather than NGOs or the media.

Greece has fought an ongoing war of words with various NGOs and international media on the subject of pushbacks, and its perceived tough policies on the handling of asylum seekers in the country since the centre-right New Democracy government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to power in the summer of 2019.

To date, the government's narrative has focused on how it took complete control of the "migration issue" through a combination of stricter measures, updating the registration and processing of asylum seekers, and increasing both land and sea border security -- all of this while always insisting that it acted within European and International laws.