Greek Minister Theodorikakos: Greece will build a fence along the entire border with Turkey
The fence is needed to end the problem of illegal immigration, which Turkey is taking advantage of, said Greece’s Minister for the Protection of Citizens
A fence will be built along the Evros River (other name Maritsa), which serves as a border between Greece and Turkey and the European Union countries; construction of the first 35 km of the fence begins immediately. This was announced by Greek Minister of Citizens’ Protection Takis Theodorikakos on Skai TV.
According to him, the total length of the fence will be about 140 km.
“The immediate solution that exists is the construction of the first 35 km in a central point with a budget of €100 million. For this, the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection in cooperation with the Ministry of National Defense has completed the study and we are waiting for the official approval of the Ministry. To arrange a quick and immediate tender,” said the minister.
He also said that in 2022 Greek police prevented 256,000 illegal immigrants from entering the country illegally and arrested 1,300 human smugglers. Theodorikakos promised to put an end to illegal immigration.
The Evros (Maritsa) is one of the largest rivers in the Balkan Peninsula, originating in southern Bulgaria. The river has a length of about 490 km. The last third of the river before flowing into the Mediterranean Sea flows along the border of Greece and Turkey.
In Europe several countries have already announced the construction of barricades on the border or have already built fences of different designs.
In June 2022, Polish authorities announced that they had completed the construction of a fence on the border with Belarus. Its height is 5 meters, the planned total length is 187 kilometers. Along the entire length of the fence it is planned to install electronic control systems, including cameras and motion sensors.
In November 2022, Poland began construction of a temporary barbed-wire fence on the border with the Kaliningrad region of Russia.
The Finnish government in November 2022 offered €139 million ($143.4 million) to build a fence along part of the country’s border with Russia. The length of the land border between the countries is about 1,300 kilometers. In late September, the Finnish Border Guard proposed to build a fence in the southeastern part of the border with Russia. It will block 10-20% of the border – 130-260 kilometers. According to the agency’s estimates, the construction will take 3-4 years.
Ukraine is building a concrete fence with barbed wire on its border with Belarus. The fence installed on Ukrainian territory consists of concrete slabs and is not continuous: in some places there are no concrete blocks. The height of the concrete fence is 3-4 meters and was erected at a distance of 10-15 meters from the border with Belarus.