Germany tells Greece to improve asylum conditions

(COPENHAGEN) - Greece must provide proper asylum conditions in line with European norms before asking other EU member states to share the burden of taking in asylum seekers, Germany said at an EU justice and interior ministers' meeting Thursday.

Germany's secretary of state for home affairs, Ole Schroeder, told reporters in Copenhagen that Berlin was no longer sending asylum seekers arriving in the EU back to Greece because of the poor asylum conditions revealed in a European Court of Justice ruling on December 21.

"In 2011, 5,000 asylum seekers who arrived via Greece were kept in Germany. The country (Greece) has to assume its responsibilities and put an asylum system in place," he said.

The ruling dealt a blow to European regulations dubbed "Dublin II" that require the first country a refugee arrives in to process the asylum request.

European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstroem would like to see the Dublin II regulations suspended for countries facing a heavy influx of refugees.

But Germany, France and Britain have opposed the idea. Together with Belgium, Sweden and Italy, those countries receive 75 percent of Europe's asylum requests.

"Suspending it is not a solution because all the human traffickers would just consider Greece an open door" into the EU, Schroeder said.

His Cypriot counterpart Neoklis Sylikiotis, whose country will take over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU in July, said he understood the German opposition.

"We have to find a political solution, because otherwise we won't be able to make any progress on a joint asylum system," he said.

"Germany is not the only country to have problems. Luxembourg is also experiencing an influx of asylum seekers.

"The countries in the south need to assume their responsibilities," he stressed.

Malmstroem has meanwhile called for "less talk and more solidarity."