Hardly any political issue is as charged as migration policy. Across Europe – and beyond – xenophobic forces are gaining strength, accompanied by ever louder calls for isolation and border fortification. Politicians and parties advocating hard-line positions on refugees are enjoying a surge in popularity. This is evident in Germany, and also in Greece.
In Thanos Plevris and Alexander Dobrindt, two political kindred spirits have found one another, aligned on core questions of migration policy. Plevris has served as Greece’s migration minister in Athens since June of this year; Dobrindt has been Germany’s interior minister in Berlin since May – and thus responsible for immigration policy as well. In recent months, it has become increasingly clear that the two are working in tandem to restrict migration to their countries and to maximize deportations – and, crucially, to do so through coordinated action.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt speaks, during a presentation of the new federal police drone defense unit, in Ahrensfelde, Germany, December 2, 2025. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Cooperation between the governments in Berlin and Athens on migration policy has been intensive for years; in scarcely any other policy area is it closer or more systematic. At the end of November, Plevris visited the German capital, and since then Athens and Berlin have jointly promoted the establishment of so-called “return hubs.” These are special centers outside the European Union to which rejected asylum seekers from EU countries would be transferred, with the aim – ideally – of deporting them from there to their countries of origin. Even on this politically and legally contentious issue, Germany and Greece are now pulling in the same direction.
(ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΚΟΝΤΑΡΙΝΗΣ/EUROKINISSI)
Earlier this week, Plevris and Dobrindt reached a surprise agreement on a long-running point of contention in migration policy that has weighed on bilateral relations for years: so-called secondary migration. At issue are roughly 100,000 refugees who, over time, initially entered Europe via Greece, were formally recognized there as refugees, but then moved on to Germany, where they submitted new asylum applications – and, to the irritation of German authorities, have refused to return.
In recent years, scarcely a high-level German-Greek government meeting passed without the German side demanding the return of these “secondary migrants” – and just as regularly, Athens rebuffing those demands. On the sidelines of the EU interior ministers’ meeting in Brussels, an agreement has now been reached on this long-blocked issue – a textbook compromise. Because both sides retreated from their respective maximal positions, their accounts of what, precisely, was agreed upon diverge. This is clearly also driven by domestic political considerations.
The Greek side emphasizes that Berlin has abandoned its insistence on returning the secondary migrants to Greece. Berlin, in turn – and with it much of the German media – highlights that Athens has agreed to take back secondary migrants from Germany. The tabloid Bild speaks of a “hammer deal” and quotes the interior minister it celebrates as saying: “We have agreed with Greece and Italy that they will take back migrants who entered the EU through their countries.”
So which is it? There is no contradiction between the two versions – neither is untrue, but each withholds part of the truth. The Greek migration minister is correct in noting that Germany has in fact dropped its demand to return the roughly 100,000 migrants accumulated since 2020 who, under the Dublin rules, should formally fall under Greece’s responsibility. For Berlin, this is undoubtedly a major concession – and it is therefore hardly surprising that this element of the deal is being played down in German public communication, if not quietly set aside altogether. Marian Wendt, director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Athens and closely familiar with the inner workings of German-Greek relations, speaks of a “breakthrough, because Germany is, for the first time, explicitly acknowledging the enormous burdens Greece has borne in recent years.”
Kassem Abo Zeed holds up a photograph with his wife, Ezra, who is missing after a fishing boat carrying migrants sank off southern Greece, in the southern port city of Kalamata, Thursday, June 15, 2023. Abo Zeed traveled from Hamburg, Germany, to try and find his wife and her missing brother, Abdullah Aoun. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Nor, however, did Minister Dobrindt leave the negotiations empty-handed. While he will not be able to send any of the 100,000 secondary refugees back to Greece – a pledge he has apparently made to the Greek side – Athens has, in return, committed itself to taking back, starting in mid-2026, all refugees who in the future reach Germany via Greece.
Minister Plevris is evidently banking on the expectation that his in some respects radical policy of deterrence will begin to show results and that irregular migration to Greece will decline significantly – thereby allowing the issue of secondary movements to diminish, at least in part, on its own. Perhaps, in cooperation with Berlin, Athens will also succeed by then in removing some unwanted migrants via deportation centers outside the European Union. Whether that calculation will hold is something the coming months will reveal.
Only a few days ago, at the conclusion of his visit to Germany, Greek Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis declared that relations between Berlin and Athens had never been better than they are today. With regard to the long-contested migration issue, that assessment – at least for the moment – appears difficult to dispute.
Dr. Ronald Meinardus is a senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).
