Germany’s Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has ruled that the deportation of certain asylum seekers back to Greece is lawful. The decision affirms Germany’s right to return migrants to the first EU country they entered, as stipulated in the Dublin Regulation.
The case centered around two individuals, a 34-year-old man from northern Gaza and a 32-year-old Somali national who first arrived in Greece. They were initially granted protection status and temporary residence permits, before traveling to Germany to re-applying for asylum there.
According to the court ruling, “[i]t cannot be expected with any significant probability that able-bodied, healthy and single young male beneficiaries of protection returning to Greece will find themselves in extreme material hardship, preventing them from meeting their most basic needs in terms of accommodation, food, and hygiene.”
“Due to bureaucratic hurdles and waiting times to receive the necessary documents, many beneficiaries of protection do not have access to state support immediately upon arrival.”
“However, they can likely find accommodation at least in temporary shelters or emergency accommodations with basic sanitary facilities, which are operated, among other things, at the municipal level and by non-governmental aid organizations,” the judges added.
The court concluded that Greece provides basic living conditions—referred to as “bread, bed, and soap” by presiding judge Robert Keller—for non-vulnerable asylum seekers.
The ruling has been welcomed by Germany’s majority center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In an interview on the British daily, The Telegraph, Senior CDU MP Günter Krings said that “[m]ore than four million asylum seekers and war refugees came to Germany in the last decade; our capacities to integrate so many people into our society are exhausted, our public order and internal security severely affected.”
German advocacy groups like Pro Asyl have campaigned against deportation, explaining that migrants in Greece face systemic barriers in accessing essential services, and that deportations would further worsen conditions for migrants.
