Germany Eyes Resuming Migrant Transfers to Greece Under EU Pact
Germany is preparing to resume transferring asylum seekers back to Greece under the EU's new migration framework, contradicting Athens' claims of resolved obligations.
The development comes as Berlin adopts a harder line on secondary migration within the EU and clashes with other member states, including Italy, over the return of asylum applicants to the country deemed responsible for processing their claims, according to Greek City Times.
Germany is now moving to enforce the EU’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which took effect on June 12, 2026. The updated rules allow responsibility for asylum applications to be transferred between member states under certain conditions, potentially reopening the door for returns to Greece.
Athens Had Declared a “Clean Slate”
In March, the Greek government announced it had reached agreements with Germany and other European nations that would effectively eliminate Greece’s outstanding responsibilities for cases built up under the old migration system.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis stated at the time that these arrangements would grant Greece a clean slate once the new European migration regulations entered force, ending Athens’ liability for older pending transfer cases.
The declaration held significant political weight for Greece, which has long maintained that its role as a primary external EU border has imposed an unfair migration burden on the nation.
Yet the June 12 implementation of the new EU migration pact established a fresh legal and administrative structure for determining member state responsibility for asylum claims. While Greece may be free of the old case backlog, it could now face new transfers under the revised rulebook.
Berlin Cracks Down on Internal EU Migration
Germany has been demanding stricter enforcement against asylum seekers who relocate from one EU member state to another after initially entering the bloc.
Under the prior Dublin framework, Germany filed a substantial volume of responsibility transfer requests to Greece and Italy. Greece ranked as Germany’s top destination for outgoing Dublin requests in 2025, with Italy coming second.
The matter has proven especially divisive in Italy, where Rome has refused to accept certain asylum seekers transferred from Germany, particularly in cases tied to arrivals and procedures that occurred before the new migration pact took effect.
German officials have nonetheless signaled that responsibility transfers should proceed under the new EU architecture, placing the question of burden-sharing among member states squarely back in the center of Europe’s migration debate.
What the New Framework Could Mean for Greece
The European Commission has noted that Greece has been bolstering the administrative capacity required to process incoming responsibility transfers under the new Asylum and Migration Management Regulation.
Greece’s National Dublin Unit has been strengthened and is now preparing to manage incoming transfer procedures as part of the new European migration framework’s rollout.
Germany has not, however, announced any large-scale operation to transfer migrants to Greece at this time.
No reliable estimate exists for how many asylum seekers Germany might attempt to transfer specifically to Greece, and no firm timeline for new transfers has been made public.
Still, Germany’s tougher posture, coupled with the activation of the EU’s redesigned migration rules, indicates the issue extends beyond simply clearing old Dublin cases.
Greece now confronts a critical uncertainty: how many asylum seekers could be sent back under the revamped European system, and whether the new pact will deliver a fairer distribution of responsibility across EU member states or simply shift old burdens under new labels.
With information from Greek City Times
