Greece is hardening its migration policy around deportations, PBS NewsHour reported, a shift its own governing party describes in stark terms [1]. Dimitris Kairidis, a parliamentary spokesperson for the governing New Democracy party, summed up the enforcement priority in a single phrase: "The operating world here is returns, returns, returns, returns" [1].
The clearest expression of that priority is a multi-country arrangement to send deportees to a third country. PBS reported that five countries, Greece, Germany, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, persuaded Uganda to accept deportees [1]. "If a final deal is signed, the first irregular migrants could be sent to East Africa next year," the report said [1]. The plan would send people deported from Europe to an East African country rather than to their countries of origin.
Rights advocates place the shift in an explicitly transatlantic frame. Spyros Oikonomou, a spokesman for the Greek Refugee Council, told PBS: "I would say that President Trump's policies have been probably an inspiration for various governments, including the European Union" [1]. Oikonomou pointed to "people being beaten at the borders, stripped of their belongings, and pushed back illegally to other countries," practices PBS described as pushbacks, in which migrants are forced back across international borders before they can apply for asylum [1]. "For starters, it's not respectful of fundamental rights. It's not respectful of the rule of law," he said [1].
The policy sits against a record that is both deadly and, until recently, substantial in its grants of protection. PBS reported that an estimated 250 people died on the crossing this year [1]. Over a longer window, Greece granted asylum to 170,000 people between 2020 and 2025, according to the report [1]. The deportation-first turn marks a change in direction from that five-year record, toward removal as the organizing goal.
Greece's move does not stand alone in Europe. The Uganda arrangement is being pursued with Germany, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, PBS reported, which places the deportation-first approach inside a broader group of EU governments rather than at the margins of one [1].
