European Commission calls for transfer of 5,000 children from Greek camps

Habeck, leader of the German Green Party, has called for the relocation of 4,000 refugee children from the Greek islands to Germany. The German government, however, says a European solution must be found in this regard. Now the European Commission has also called for the relocation of the children.

The European Commission has called on Germany and other European countries to accept children and adolescents who are living in extremely difficult conditions in Greek refugee camps without families or guardians.

According to the latest data from the European Commission, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving on the Greek islands has increased, and as of December 20 of this year, 1,922 unaccompanied minors have been registered on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kas.

Across Greece, the figure stood at 5,276 by the end of November 2019. Nine percent of these people are under the age of 14 and are considered “children” under the Juvenile Protection Law.

Robert Habeck, leader of the German Green Party, has called for up to 4,000 migrant children to be transferred from the Greek islands to Germany. But Ulrike Demmer, deputy spokeswoman for the German government, responded on Monday, December 23, saying that the German government alone cannot solve the problem and that a European solution must be found.

But a European solution for the transfer of refugee children is not possible, given the opposition of countries such as Hungary and Poland.

The issue of transferring refugee children and teenagers from the Greek islands to Germany has sparked heated debate in German society. Some German states have announced their readiness to accept refugee children. Boris Pistorius, the interior minister of Lower Saxony, has asked German interior minister Horst Seehofer to allow the state to accept unaccompanied minors. He says the plight of these people should not be ignored.