PM: Europe obliged to deal with migration

Europe has an obligation to deal with the migration problem as it concerns the entire continent, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted on his arrival in Brussels for the European summit on Thursday.

“Undoubtedly, the most important item on the agenda of the European Council concerns European policy on migration and asylum issues,” he said.

Mitsotakis welcomed the progress that has been achieved, which is something that Greece has long sought. 

It is a European obligation to deal with a problem that concerns the entire continent, he said.

Referring to Europe’s external borders, he stressed that Greece attaches great importance to their protection.

“This is mission that the Greek state, coast guard and police, with the assistance of the armed forces, has performed in full, reducing migration flows to the Greek islands by 90 percent and proving that there is a way to tear down the despicable traffickers that trade in human pain in order to transport persecuted people in boats and small vessels that should never set sail from any shore,” he said.

The Greek PM also defended the Hellenic Coast Guard, which had come under fire over its handling of the shipwreck off the southern coast of Greece in mid-June which led to the deaths of hundreds of migrants. 

It is absolutely unfair, he said, for the Hellenic Coast Guard to be targeted by some circles in Europe.

The coast guard, Mitsotakis stressed, has saved thousands of people at sea, while also responding and offering its best services in the case of the shipwreck in question.

“All our energy must be directed at the elimination and the absolute targeting of the traffickers, who are exclusively responsible for the fact that people are boarding boats that should never sail in the Mediterranean,” he added.