PM: EU closer to Greek positions on migrant returns
The European Union has come closer to Greece’s positions on asylum, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told reporters following Thursday’s EU Summit.
Greece has long insisted that Europe needs to ensure that migrants who have entered the bloc illegally are turned back to their point of origin rather than their point of entry. With Greece being, along with other Mediterranean countries one of the main points of entry, the return policy as currently applied threatens to turn the country into a warehouse for rejected migrants.
The migration issue has dominated the latest EU Summit.
“Returns to Turkey do not happen and must happen, but it is a difficult process. Only one in five (illegally entering migrants) return in the in the end,” Mitsotakis said, alluding to the fact that most of the migrants crossing into Greece arrive from Turkey.
“The EU has moved closer to the Greek positions regarding asylum…the European Council is saying… that ‘if you are not eligible to remain in Europe you must return.’ It is the right policy, Greece always supported (it)…It is us who set the rules for the entry of economic migrants, not the traffickers,” Mitsotakis added.
The Prime Minister noted that “I do not oppose all innovative proposals; we must think outside the box. We got a big problem and we must face it.”
