PM says not fair to manage EU migration problem alone
A month after a fatal shipwreck, Hellenic Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday that his country shouldn’t be forced to handle migration for the European Union or face accusations of failing to save people at sea.
On June 14th, an overloaded boat collapsed and sank in international waters off Pylos, Greece, killing 104 people and leaving hundreds more to perish. This was one of Europe’s deadliest shipping disasters in recent memory.
Investigations into the shipwreck’s causes are ongoing. In spite of Greece’s denials, survivors claim that the ship capsized following a botched Greek coast guard towing attempt.
The June 25 election winner, Mitsotakis, claimed on Monday that his nation is located on the exterior boundary of the “very dangerous” Mediterranean crossing, which more people are using to enter the EU.
He claimed that while the recent EU agreement on migration was a beginning in the right direction, it was not the only answer to the problem because it was “fundamentally a European problem” and the EU bloc needed to put in a lot of effort to find a comprehensive solution.
“It is very unfair for countries such as Greece … to be burdened with the task of managing this problem or be accused of actually not saving people at sea when this is what our coast guard does every day,” Mitsotakis said from Riga, after meeting his Latvian counterpart.
“We should be placing the blame squarely on the smugglers and those who facilitate them. They are the ones who at the end of the day who are responsible for whatever tragedy takes place in the Mediterranean,” he said.
One of the main entry points for refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa is Greece. In 2015, about a million refugees and migrants travelled from Turkey to Greece’s islands, but since an agreement between the EU and Turkey in March 2016, the number of arrivals has drastically decreased.
This week, Mitsotakis is anticipated to have a meeting with the newly re-elected Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan outside of a NATO summit.
