Mitsotakis speaks of ‘humiliation’ during security check at German airport

Conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday expressed his distress during a recent trip to Germany when he and other passengers flying in from Greece were subjected to much greater scrutiny than customarily used for European Union arrivals.

“I felt humiliated as a Greek when I was taken into a different terminal and waited for 20 minutes to have my passport checked,” Mitsotakis told an event at the Bruegel think-tank in Brussels on “Responsibility to Reform Europe.”

His experience echoes that of other Greeks who have complained of being left out on the tarmac in the cold when they came off their flight from Greece or being escorted to other parts of the airport in order to undergo a more rigorous security check. Aside from the humiliation, the checks are also time-consuming and cause delays in travelers’ plans, they said.

Germany tightened security at its airports last month after reportedly intercepting more than 1,000 passengers from Greece between January and October who were traveling with forged identity documents, according to the country’s Foreign Ministry.