ATHENS: Greece on Thursday moved to speed up the processing of asylum seekers by setting up new committees to decide which of the migrants should be sent back to Turkey, in line with a deal between the EU and Ankara.
The reform comes after the 20 current committees have blocked the vast majority of returns to Turkey on the basis that it was not a safe country for the migrants.
Under the controversial deal agreed in March, failed asylum seekers were to be sent back to Turkey in a bid to stem the European Union's worst ever migrant crisis.
Under the measure adopted by the Greek parliament on Thursday, two judges and a representative of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) will now decide on the asylum requests.
Under measures adopted in 2011 to ensure the independence of such bodies, they have until now comprised a civil servant, a member of the national human rights committee and a UNHCR representative.
The change approved Thursday "reinforces the competence of the commissions" and "will speed up the process, with respect to human rights", a source at the interior ministry said.
Greek media in recent days has said the EU was pressing Athens to make changes to the committees in order to clear the backlog of asylum requests.
Some 8,300 migrants are currently on the Greek islands facing a possible return to Turkey.
Since March 20 when the deal went into force, 462 migrants have been sent back.
They included 31 Syrians fleeing the civil war in their country, but none of them had officially requested asylum in Greece.
Only two Syrian asylum seekers have so far been unsuccessful in their appeals. They have however not yet been sent back to Turkey as they are exploring other legal avenues.
The EU-Turkey deal has also been weakened by a dispute between Brussels and Ankara over visa-free access for Turks into the EU.
The accord has however resulted in a reduction of the number of migrant arrivals in Greece's Aegean islands, to an average of 47 a day from around 1,740 several months ago.
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