ATHENS — As Greece struggles to deal with a seemingly endless influx of migrants from neighboring Turkey, the conservative government has a contentious new plan to respond to the problem: a floating net barrier to avert smuggling boats. But rights groups have condemned the plan, warning that it would increase the perils faced by asylum-seekers amid growing tensions at camps on the Aegean Islands and in communities there and on the mainland. The potential effectiveness of the barrier system has also been widely questioned, and the center-right daily newspaper Kathimerini dismissed the idea in an editorial Friday as “wishful thinking.” The main opposition party, the leftist Syriza, has condemned the floating barrier plan as “a disgrace and an insult to humanity.” Authorities aim to install a 1.7-mile barrier between the Greek and Turkish coastlines that would rise more than 19 inches above the water and display flashing lights, according to a description posted on a government website last week by Greece’s Defense Ministry. Citing an “urgent need to address rising refugee flows,” the submission invited private contractors to bid for the project that would cost an estimated 500,000 euros (more than $554,000), including the cost of four years of maintenance. The government is expected to assign the job in the next three months. Greece’s defense minister, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, told Greek radio that he hoped the floating barrier would act as a deterrent to smugglers, similar to a barbed-wire fence that Greek authorities built along the northern land border with Turkey in 2012. The construction will be overseen by the Defense Ministry, which has supervised the creation of new reception centers on the Greek islands and mainland in recent months. But...
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