Under terms of a European agreement signed in Dublin, asylum seekers can be returned to the European country where they first applied for refugee status. Norway sent 74 asylum seekers back to Greece last year, on the basis of that agreement. The country has since decided to stop sending people back because of serious problems with the asylum process in Greece.

More on this from the Athens News this week

According to Spyros Kouloheris, chief legal advisor at the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR), Norway’s decision to stop sending asylum-seekers back to Greece should sound alarm bells for the government’s management of the asylum system.

“We’ve had courts in other countries ruling against the return of an asylum-seeker to Greece,” Kouloheris told the Athens News. “This is the first time that a country has officially stopped all returns on the basis that Greece is not a safe country. This is very serious, but the truth is that the asylum procedure in Greece is extremely problematic.”

Read the full in-depth article here.

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