The rhetoric being used is martial: Thanos Plevris, Greece’s recently appointed migration minister, has called the influx of refugees across the Mediterranean an “invasion.” Several lawmakers from the ruling New Democracy party have used the terms “hybrid war” and “emergency.”
A large proportion of Greek media has said that the island of Crete is being “flooded” by irregular immigrants.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has promised that Greece will not permit a new channel for illegal entry into Greece and Europe to be opened up.
“Just like in the region of Evros in 2020, we will do everything necessary to stop them,” he wrote in his weekly Facebook post on Sunday.
But more than anything, politicians and media alike are referencing the year 2015, when millions of refugees — mostly from Syria — came to Europe.
But is Greece (and, with it, Europe) really on the cusp of a new refugee crisis like the one ten years ago? All the data indicates that it is not.
One hundred times more refugees in 2015
According to the Hellenic Coast Guard, 7,336 refugees arrived on Crete and the small, nearby island of Gavdos in the first half of 2025. Almost 2,000 more have arrived in July. UNHCR gives slightly higher figures for the period to July 6.
Although that’s almost 350% more than in the year 2024, the figures do not warrant the use of the term “invasion.”
In theory, an island the size of Crete would be able to cope with 9,000 or 10,000 refugees.
It is worth comparing these figures with those from the year 2015, when a hundred times more refugees — over one million — arrived on many smaller Greek islands such as Lesbos and Kos.
However, the societal and political atmosphere both in Greece and in Europe is different now to what it was 10 years ago.
Resistance to a new camp
The people of Crete, which welcomed almost 4 million tourists in 2024, are vehemently resisting the construction of a camp for the new refugees. There were even demonstrations there at the weekend.
As a result, the new arrivals are being moved to Malakasa near Athens or to northern Greece.
Although the government has announced that there will be a camp on Crete, it is doubtful whether it will be willing to bear the political cost of one.
Sumptuous meals for asylum seekers?
At the same time, the Greek migration minister speaks only of “illegal migrants,” whom he says belong behind bars, and threatens refugees with reduced food rations.
Plevris claims that the people in enclosed camps are eating far too well and has repeatedly declared that his Migration Ministry is “not a hotel” for immigrants.
The fact is that in Greece, it is only asylum seekers who receive food. Those who are recognized as refugees and those whose asylum applications have been rejected but remain in the country because they have nowhere else to go are not entitled to food supplies.
Since October 1, 2021, asylum seekers, who are housed in camps across Greece, are fed by private catering companies at a cost of €6.88 ($7.99) per person per day.
So, Plevris’s claim that they are being served sumptuous hotel-style meals is at the very least an exaggeration.
Migrants want to move on
The minister, who used to be a member of the extreme right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), is keen to portray himself as a committed opponent of “illegal immigration.”
In his eyes, almost all new arrivals are illegal. He accuses them of wanting to lead a beautiful life in Greece at the expense of the Greek taxpayer.
The fact of the matter is, however, that 75% of the cost of feeding asylum seekers is borne by the EU. Another fact is that most refugees and migrants do not want to stay in Greece, but want to move on, mostly to western and northern Europe.
Asylum applications suspended
In addition, new arrivals currently don’t have access to an asylum procedure, which means that they are not entitled to receive food.
After a new law was passed last week (with the votes of the ruling New Democracy party and lawmakers from smaller, right-wing parties), Greece is suspending asylum applications from refugees who arrive in the country by sea from northern Africa for at least three months.
The law is controversial and, in the opinion of many legal experts, both unconstitutional and in glaring contradiction with European values. Nevertheless, not even the European Commission has put up any opposition.
Plans to send migrants back
Now Plevris legally has a free hand for his plans to send new arrivals back without an asylum procedure.
“There are countries to which we can send them back, countries with which we have agreements, and others to which they can voluntarily return,” he claimed on the television channel SKAI at the weekend.
But is that really the case?
One in three people currently in custody pending deportation comes from Egypt and cannot, according to the Greek ombudsman, be sent back there under the present circumstances. For this reason, the Greek government would like to make a deal with Cairo. However, such an agreement does not yet exist.
According to the Migration Ministry, most of the asylum seekers who arrived in the first five months of 2025 came from Afghanistan (31%), Egypt (16.4%), Syria (6.2%), Pakistan (5.2%), Sudan (4.5%) and Bangladesh (3.6%).
It is, however, doubtful whether those who are not granted asylum or are not allowed to apply for asylum will be sent back to all these countries.
Policy of deterrence
Despite all this, the migration minister continues to work on his policy of deterrence and is preparing a new bill which would introduce a penalty of three years in prison without probation and a €10,000 fine for anyone refusing to leave the country.
But it is questionable whether that would work. It seems unlikely that it would deter people who have fled Sudan, crossed the Libyan desert and found the money for the sea crossing to Greece from Tobruk on the Libyan coast.
Nor is it clear what would happen to those people after three years. Would they be given another three-year prison sentence?
But to right-wing voters in Greece, Plevris’s plans sound promising, and that is important for the government.
A deal with Libya?
The government already knows that the threat of prison will not solve the problem, nor the two frigates which Mitsotakis recently sent to patrol the Libyan coast.
Right now, broken and divided Libya is the place where people who want to flee Africa’s wars, famines and lack of prospects gather, waiting for an opportunity to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
No less than 14 million people have fled the war in Sudan and gone to Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya.
The only realistic solution to the problem would be for Greece and Europe to reach an agreement with the two rival governments in Libya — one in Tripoli, which is internationally recognized, the other in Benghazi — along the lines of the EU-Turkey deal on migration from 2016.
This article was originally published in German.
