Mitsotakis pledges to move fast with creation of permanent migrant centre in Lesvos

The Greek government will move swiftly with a tender for the construction of a new up-to-standard center for the reception and identification of migrants on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday.

“It was a joint agreement with the president of the [European] Commission that we will find a location on which all – or as many as possible – local actors would agree on,” he said during a visit to the temporary tent city of Kara Tepe.

The camp replaced the notoriously overcrowded center in Moria, which burned to the ground last September.

A deal signed with Brussels states that the new facility will be up and running by the beginning of this September, with a capacity of 5,000 people.

“We said we would close Moria. Of course we did not expect it to close the way it did, but in the end it was all for the best,” he said.