Greek PM says German border plan will be burden for Greece

ATHENS (Reuters) -Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that a German plan to impose tighter checks at its land borders amounted to unilaterally scrapping Europe's open-border Schengen zone and would burden frontline states such as Greece.

Germany said this week that the checks within what is normally a wide area of free movement - the Schengen zone - would start on Sept. 16 and initially last for six months, as the country tries to clamp down on irregular migration.

"Germany had an extremely tolerant and I would say socially generous policy against migrants which is now triggering a big social backlash," Mitsotakis said in an interview with a Greek radio station.

"The response cannot be unilaterally scrapping Schengen and dropping the ball to countries which sit on Europe's external borders," he said.

Instead, the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, a revamped migration system which recognises the importance of guarding Europe's external borders, should be implemented, Mitsotakis said.

Greece was on the frontline of Europe's migration crisis in 2015-16 when more than a million refugees - many of them fleeing civil war in Syria - arrived, mainly via Turkey. Most eventually moved on to Germany and other western European destinations.

The number of arrivals in Greece has since fallen sharply but many migrants, mainly from Libya and Egypt, still reach Greek shores before also heading towards western Europe.

Mitsotakis' conservative government, which won a second term last year, has tighetened its migration policy since 2019.

A cement and barbed-wire fence that Greece is extending along its northern border with Turkey to prevent migrants from entering the country will be completed within a year, Greek Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis told state television on Thursday.

"We are doing our duty to Europe, we're guarding our borders," Chrisochoidis said.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Gareth Jones)