Greece says cannot become gateway to EU for fleeing Afghans

Greece does not want to become the entry point into the European Union for Afghans fleeing the escalating conflict in their homeland, Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis said on Tuesday, calling for a common EU response to the crisis.

Greece was on the frontline of Europe’s migration crisis in 2015, when nearly a million people fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan landed on its islands, and like other EU member states, it is nervous that developments in Afghanistan could trigger a replay of that crisis.

“We are clearly saying that we will not and cannot be the gateway of Europe for the refugees and migrants who could try to come to the European Union,” Mitarakis told state television ERT.

“We cannot have millions of people leaving Afghanistan and coming to the European Union … and certainly not through Greece,” he said.

EU foreign ministers will hold a crisis meeting on Tuesday to discuss the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and Greece has requested that the issue is also discussed at a meeting of EU home affairs ministers on Wednesday.

“The solution needs to be common, and it needs to be a European solution,” Mitarakis said. Unity between EU member states over whether to deport failed Afghan asylum-seekers crumbled last week. [Reuters]