EU open to more direct role in Greek refugee camp

Fire that destroyed Moria camp triggers debate across Europe.

The European Commission said Monday it is open to taking a major role in building and running a new site for migrants on the Greek island of Lesvos to replace the camp destroyed by fire last week.

Such a move would make the EU more directly responsible for the treatment of asylum seekers on the island, following fierce criticism of the living conditions at the previous camp run by Greek authorities.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has suggested the "new facility should be managed jointly by the European Union and Greece" and Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas "expressed openness to this idea," a Commission spokesperson said.

"There are long-standing plans by the Greek authorities to build appropriate new facilities on [Greek] islands, and EU financing for these is already identified. So there is a lot of discussions and in fact processes in place that would enable us to build on rapidly,” the spokesperson, Adalbert Jahnz, told reporters.

The fire at the Moria camp has triggered intense debate in a number of European countries. In Germany, the EU's most populous member, leading politicians have called on the government to take in many more people from the camp than the 150 accompanied minors it has agreed to accept so far.

In a significant shift in his rhetoric on migration, Bavarian state premier Markus Söder — widely tipped as a leading contender to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor — said Germany should "substantially increase its share" of refugees from Moria.

Söder, who had been a sharp critic of Merkel's decision to open Germany's borders to large numbers of migrants in 2015, told Bild that it is a "personal Christian duty to help in such an emergency."

He stressed, however, that migration policy has to be solved at the European level and that Germany should avoid acting unilaterally: "Here's what we can't do: Return to the year 2015, without rules, without a vision."

Merkel told the national board of the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Monday that she also wants a "Europeanization" of the Greek camp, according to a participant at the meeting.

The participant, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Merkel wants the EU to directly handle asylum requests in order to speed up the process that decides whether an applicant has the right to stay in the EU.

Merkel, Mitsotakis and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are jointly advocating for the EU to rebuild and operate the Moria camp, Bild reported.

According to Bild, Merkel is also considering admitting hundreds of children, possibly even thousands, with their parents, from Moria to Germany as a "one-time action."