Greece urges EU to allow asylum suspensions during mass migration surges

Greece has urged the European Union to let member states temporarily suspend asylum applications during major migration flows, arguing that existing rules cannot cope with mass arrivals like those seen in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta this summer, Reuters reported.

The proposal went to EU interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg for the Justice and Home Affairs Council, where it appeared to garner support from some member states.

Dutch Migration Minister Bart van den Brink backed the idea: “We have to find a legal way not to bring them into the asylum procedure. In situations like Ceuta, it should be treated as a border management issue rather than an asylum issue.”

Greek Migration Minister Thanos Plevris said the EU migration pact, in force since June, had improved flow management but had not gone far enough. Arriving at the meeting, he said: “In such cases, there should be enhanced border surveillance and suspension of asylum.”

Spain estimates more than 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta in late July; most have since returned, but about 10,000 remain.

The push comes as irregular arrivals to the EU are down 35% this year, with returns up about 8% in the first half of 2026. Greece was on the front line of the 2015–16 crisis, when more than a million people, many of them Syrians fleeing war, arrived in the bloc.

Greece, Germany, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands separately agreed steps towards return hubs in a non-EU country; Al Jazeera corroborated the proposal.

Sources

• Reuters — Amina Ismail & Angeliki Koutantou, LUXEMBOURG, 1 October 2026: “Greece proposes suspending asylum requests in emergencies”
• Al Jazeera, 2 October 2026: “Greece pushes EU to suspend asylum during mass migration surges”