(Politico) Fifteen minutes outside the town of Vathy stands a just-completed compound, surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence.
The entrance, only open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., is equipped with turnstiles, magnetic gates and X-ray machines. Guards check both ID cards and fingerprints for those coming in.
The facility is the first EU-designed, EU-funded migrant camp in Greece — the start of a €276 million response to the overflowing, substandard tent cities that sprung up on Greece’s Aegean islands in 2015 as Syrians fled a civil war.
Essentially, it’s what the EU envisions as the future of processing migrants who land on Greek shores, including Afghans who might arrive seeking escape from the Taliban. In addition to the Samos facility, the EU is funding similar camps on the islands of Leros, Lesbos, Kos and Chios. It is meant to provide a higher standard of accommodation for asylum seekers, while also separating them from local communities, who have been protesting their presence for years.
