Greece

Authored by George Soros, originally posted at NYBooks.com,

The asylum policy that emerged from last month’s EU-Turkey negotiations - and that has already resulted in the deportation of hundreds of asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey - has four fundamental flaws.

First, the policy is not truly European; it was negotiated with Turkey and imposed on the EU by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

 

Second, it is severely underfunded.

 

As we predicted last week when Wikileaks released an IMF transcript which suggested trubulent times may be ahead for Greece, Reuters today writes that "the leaking of a conference call of International Monetary Fund officials on Greece's latest bailout review has further undermined mutual trust in fraught debt talks, embarrassed the European Commission and infuriated the IMF and Germany."

Just last week we reported about Greece deporting migrants to Turkey as part of a mutual deal with the EU. Now, nearly a week later, the number of migrants has dropped severely. According to a report from DW.com: The number of irregular migrants making the dangerous boat journey from Turkey to Greece plunged to 78 in the past 24 hours, the Greek refugee crisis committee said Saturday. Closed borders and the prospect of migrants being sent back to Turkey appears to be stemming the flow.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Varoufakis said that Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister and the architect of the deals Greece signed in 2010 and 2012, was “consistent throughout”. “His view was ‘I’m not discussing the program – this was accepted by the previous [Greek] government and we can’t possibly allow an election to change anything.

 

As a part of a new EU plan aimed at reducing the number of refugees flowing into Europe, Greece has begun sending migrants back to Turkey.  Greek border agents put 135 migrants on a ferry back to Turkey, much to the anger of Turkish authorities. USAToday explains: Human rights groups have been highly critical of the plan, saying Turkey, which already hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees, can not adequately care for the migrants. “This is the first day of a very difficult time for refugee rights.