Greece has announced its plan to expand the wall along the country’s border with Turkey by three times its length and is seeking financial support from the European Union to assist in its construction.
Migration Affairs Minister, Notis Mitarachi, said that construction would start at the end of the year with the steel wall extending from 40 to 120 kilometres.
“It is a government decision to extend the border wall further and we have requested European funding,” Mitarachi said in an interview with local media.
Greece has pushed for this expansion following their accusations to Turkey of ‘instrumentalising’ migration as a means of exerting pressure on EU countries.
Ankara refutes these accusations and says that it has shouldered an excessively large burden by hosting almost four million refugees, most of whom fled the Syrian civil war.
Funds for the wall have yet to be allocated as the EU Commission does not currently pay for wall construction at external borders, they are a part of the nation budget.
The commission argues that it would drain funds from other migration matters such as the financing of the EU border protection agency, Frontex.
Tensions between Greece and Turkey have been rising since 2020 where the two nations ended up in a naval standoff after Greece and Cyprus claimed areas in the Mediterranean as their own exclusive economic zone.
Source: Aljazeera
