07 February 2012 | 19:18 | Focus News Agency Home
/ European Union
Brussels. The European Commission
rejected on Tuesday a request from Greece to help pay to build a fence along
its porous border with Turkey, calling the project "pointless", AFP reported.
Greece started building the 10-kilometre (six-mile) long, 2.5-metre (eight foot) high barrier along the Turkish border on Monday to prevent thousands of illegal migrants from streaming into the European Union.
The cost is estimated at 5.5 million euros ($7.3 million) and it is due to be completed in five months.
"The commission has decided not to follow up the Greek request because it considers it pointless," Michele Cercone, a European Commission spokesman, told a news briefing.
"Fences and walls are short term measures that do not solve migration management issues in a structural way."
It is up to EU states to decide how to secure their borders, but they have to take into account "international obligations including the respect of migrants, human rights," Cercone said.
Watch the
video (from 10:10 to 16:35) with Michele Cercone statement:
