Her Egypta “key” country for dealing with immigration pressure, has been visited since yesterday by the Minister of Immigration and Asylum, Dimitris Kairides.

Mr. Kairides held a series of bilateral contacts with his counterparts, focusing on the need to combat illegal immigration and facilitate legal and legal immigration, with conditions and rules, as stated in a ministry announcement.

The Minister of Immigration and Asylum first met with the Minister of Labour, Hasan Sehata, with whom he explored the possibilities of further cooperation between the two countries in the field of legal immigration.

In the summer in Greece, the first seasonal land workers

Greece and Egypt have signed, from November 2022, a bilateral transnational agreement for employment 5,000 seasonal land workersin order to meet the needs of labor in the agricultural sector.

The list of the first 2,400 candidates has already been drawn up, whose transfers will begin to be processed within summer of 2024.

Given the excellent level of understanding between the two countries, as noted in the same announcement, the two ministers considered the possibility extension of her agreement to constructive and the touristic sector, in accordance with the needs of the ever-growing Greek economy and with absolute security for Greek society.

Afterwards, a working meeting was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where Mr. Kairides raised the major problem of illegal migrant trafficking.

The Greek minister, after praising the wider stabilizing role of Egypt and its contribution to the fight against illegal immigration, emphasized the need for further cooperation to jointly prevent illegal flows from the central Mediterranean corridor, while underlining the need to intensify the returns of those rejected Egyptian asylum seekers in their country of origin.

Finally, Mr. Kairides met with the Minister of Immigration, Soha Ghendi, with whom they discussed the possibility of cooperation between the two countries in the professional training of candidates for repatriation of workers and the provision of expertise from the Greek side in terms of asylum procedures.

“Greece-Egyptian relations are currently at the best level in their history. In this context, the cooperation of the two countries in immigration is natural and self-evident. The basis of this is the joint fight against illegal immigration and the encouragement of legal labor mobility. Europe must recognize that Egypt currently hosts more than 9 million migrants and contributes decisively to the fight against illegal trafficking and the management of migratory pressure towards Europe. Greece claimed and achieved the strong European support of Egypt, which resulted in the recent EU-Egypt agreement, during the visit of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and his counterparts, to Cairo on March 21. Now is the time to implement all of its provisions in the interest of both Egypt and European countries,” the Minister of Immigration and Asylum pointed out.