Commission awards additional EUR 82.6 million in emergency funding to Greece

The European Commission has awarded an extra EUR 82.6 million in emergency funding to Greece under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF). Through AMIF, emergency funding of EUR 24.2 million is awarded to the Greek Ministry of Health, for increasing the capacity to provide primary health care to migrants and refugees. It aims to provide primary health care services (medical and psychosocial services) at refugee accommodation centres, and to strengthen the capacity of the public health system and epidemiological surveillance structures. In addition, EUR 58.4 million are awarded to the Greek Ministry of Defense to provide migrants with urgent shelter, accommodation, catering, health care and transportation. These activities are to be funded on the Greek mainland with EUR 52.2 million provided by AMIF, while EUR 6.2 million is awarded for support in the hotspots through the ISF. These new emergency assistance grants follow similar awards made earlier in 2016 which covered the needs between February and July. With this extra funding, the emergency assistance awarded for activities in Greece reaches EUR 345 million since the start of 2015, including support to Greek authorities, EU agencies, international organisations and NGOs. This emergency funding comes on top of the EUR 509 million already allocated to Greece under the national programmes for 2014-2020 (EUR 294.5 million from AMIF and EUR 214.7 million from ISF).