Cultural globalization

Turkey on April 13 rejected Greece's migration minister's remarks that claimed Ankara violated the March 18 agreement with the EU using the coronavirus epidemic as an excuse.

Greece's telecommunication networks have responded well to the pandemic crisis so far. Despite the increase in traffic coming to at least 50 percent, as noted by British consultancy Tech4i2, the slowdown in internet speeds around the country has been the smallest compared to networks elsewhere in Europe.

The Austrian government has agreed to send Greece 181 containers to be used for the accommodation of migrants and refugees and as mobile healthcare facilities, following a request by Athens, according to the ministry of migration on Thursday.

Greece has had to place two camps on lockdown after 21 migrants tested positive for Covid-19.

In 2018, around 672 300 persons acquired citizenship of one of the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU), down from 700 600 in 2017 and 843 900 in 2016.

Bulgaria closes its borders until April 17. The measure applies to all non-European citizens or arrivals from the following EU Member States and Schengen countries: Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

More than two dozen shelters hosting asylum seekers on the Greek mainland will come under the administrative control of the Migration and Asylum Ministry as part of the effort to improve the operation of these facilities, many of which are currently operating under the authority of international organizations or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

The Serbian government ordered on Monday that migrants and asylum-seekers living in state-run reception centres are not allowed to go out without special permission.

Four asylum seekers, injured by Greek security forces along the Turkey-Greece border, applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), state-run Anadolu Agency reported on March 16.   

Ali Cengiz Kalkan, the provincial health director of Northwestern Edirne province, told Anadolu Agency that the asylum seekers applied to the ECHR through their lawyers.

The Independent  Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR) has announced that transactions with the tax office, customs and the General Chemical State Laboratory of Greece will be carried out strictly via mail or by phone as of Monday.

After Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said that Croatia was ready to take in some child refugees trapped in refugee camps on Greek islands, hostile comments on social networks condemned the idea, some claiming that parents and wider relatives would then accompany the children - some of whom might be extremists.