Greek president wants EU summit on refugee crisis

President Prokopis Pavlopoulos has proposed that a European Union leaders’ summit be called to discuss a mounting migrant and refugee crisis and called for a closer cooperation with the United Nations.

In comments during a meeting on Saturday with Health Minister Panayiotis Kouroublis, Pavlopoulos said a burgeoning migration crisis “is not only a security issue but also a humanitarian concern.”

The scale of the problem means it must be tackled jointly, the president said.

“There must be a common European policy,” he said, noting that this was “an obligation of the European Union and its institutions.”

He called for an EU leaders’ summit to be called without delay and with the involvement of the UN refugee agency.

Kouroublis, for his part, said the migration crisis “threatens to drown us as a country and we must exhaust all efforts at the European level so that they realize this is not just a Greek issue.”