EU’s Schinas briefs Greek MPs on new migration deal
European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas on Friday briefed the committees on European affairs and public administration in the Greek Parliament on the EU’s continuing talks over the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, responding to criticism and concerns from all sides.
Opposition parties criticized the EU for its policies of unequal weight, for not implementing the Juncker Plan on migration, and for turning Greece into a “warehouse of souls”, where migrants’ cases were not processed in a timely manner.
Concerning the Juncker Plan, Schinas said he was very supportive of it in the past, but called it “too romantic” to succeed. He also took exception to the description of Greece as a “warehouse of souls”, saying that it is the “present non-system” that has created this situation.
“What we experienced in Moria or Kale on Lesvos island was because we have a system full of holes, a patchwork system, with non-solutions that produce such phenomena,” the Commissioner said.
“So new solutions through a new collective framework are called for, unifying everything. Our proposal for screening is not to keep a migrant at the entry points, like the hotspots do now, but to determine through a process whether someone entering the EU constitutes a threat.”
[AN-MPA]
