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A wall of iron and wire with a length of 12.5 km intends to build at the land border with Turkey, the Greek Ministry of civil protection in an attempt to stop the tide of illegal immigrants. According to sources from the ministry in this particular area there are large farming areas of land through which dozens of immigrants cross into Greece without the help of smugglers. The rest of the border coincides with the bed of the Maritsa river, where members of the European groups of Rapid Border Intervention involving police officers from 27 countries - members of the EU are constantly patrolling.

Greece will give asylum to the immigrants who are entitled to such and will expel from the country or sent voluntarily to their homeland immigrants who do not meet the conditions for international protection. Thus, according to the competent minister Christos Papoutsis the country will solve the problem of illegal immigrants who arrive daily by the hundreds.

The Minister's statement that was made before the national news agency ANA in the last hours of 2010 surprised the public as much as it did Greek politicians. "The limits of tolerance of the Greek society towards illegal immigrants have long been passed," said Christos Papoutsis, adding that the construction of a wall along the Greek-Turkish border is being planned in order to stop immigration flows.

Today it became clear that the wall will be built by April. On the fence there won’t be any electrical wires as it is at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, according to the ministry of civil protection. There will be placed thermal cameras and sensors which will detect movement of people and will send signals to the operations center, which is expected to be built. Such a wall stands on the border between Israel and Egypt. More effective, however, has proved to be the wall at the Spanish border, which touches the African continent in Ceuta, but there except for the preventive measures is also applied in practice a bilateral cooperation agreement between Spain and Morocco.

The intention of the Greek government caused strong reactions from human rights organizations, and the European Commission has distanced itself from them. According to EU Commissioner of Homeland Security Cecilia Malmstrom "the construction of walls and fences in the past proved to be a short-term measure, which failed to help for the overall deal with migration flows".

In its communication entitled "Papoutsis as Honecker " the social support network for refugees and immigrants in Athens points out: "It is well known that border walls alter migration corridors, rather than stop migration flows. A typical example for this is the wall on the border of the U.S. with Mexico, where the number of undocumented immigrants who cross the border has increased". According to the organization in this way the rights and freedoms will be affected because it will restrict the right of asylum and will increase the dangers of the journey, as a result of which we will witness more deaths at the border.

According to some commentators society should not avoid the fact that Evros, where the wall is planned to be built is also an external EU border. They believe that "the establishment of any association between the proposed wall and the one that Israel intends to build in order to isolate the Palestinians is quite normal to cause doubts in the administration in Brussels. It is not by chance, they believe, that the representative of the competent EU Commissioner Michele Cercone insisted on finding a political solution to the issue and expressed his hope that very soon the final contract agreements will be signed for the readmission with Turkey, so as to prevent the challenges and the large migration pressures to Greece.

Despite the reactions, however Minister Christos Papoutsis stood firmly behind his decision to build the wall. In his message it was stated that the construction of the wall is a part of the package of measures that will be voted on in the coming days. They included the creation of an independent body for quick review of asylum applications and of a separate office for the operation of reception centers and centers for the detention of illegal immigrants. The legal framework will also be revised regarding the organization of voluntary repatriation and mandatory deportation of immigrants who do not meet the requirements for international protection.

In an attempt to prevent a possible reaction from across the Aegean, the Minister hurried to explain that "the measures are in no way directed against Turkey. On the contrary, they facilitate and enhance our cooperation with Turkey in combating the phenomenon of illegal immigration, the effective implementation of the bilateral agreement on readmission and the resolute prevention of networks for human trafficking which operate in both countries and throughout the world."

According to information from the police in recent months the flow of illegal immigrants has declined. In October 2010 at the land border in the region of Evros were captured 7,773 illegal immigrants, but in December their number had dropped to 4462.

The significant reduction in arrests is proportionate to the reduction of migration flows, and according to the authorities this is due to two factors: the weather conditions and the forces of Frontex. The police say that in recent years they always reported declines of migratory flows during the winter months because of adverse weather conditions in the region of Maritsa River.

The same sources doubt that the forces of Frontex have played the role of breakwater against migration tide and expressed their fears that the situation will get worse again when the weather will improve. From the seat of the police report, however, the effectiveness of the European groups of Rapid Border Intervention Teams (RABIT) of Frontex.