Greece, Turkey take legal short-cuts in race to return migrants

Greece, which started evacuating hundreds of people stranded in Athens' Piraeus port on Thursday, submitted to parliament an asylum amendment bill on Wednesday. Brussels said it had assurances from Athens that it would be passed this week.

But it does not explicitly designate Turkey as a "safe third country" - a formula to make any mass returns legally sound - and a senior official of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that change did not remove its concerns about protecting the rights of asylum seekers.

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EU officials said the formula was devised to get around unease among lawmakers in Greece's ruling Syriza party at declaring Turkey safe when it is waging a military crackdown on Kurdish separatists and is accused of curbing media freedom and judicial independence.