Mitarakis: The extension of the Evros fence “will be done with national funds” |

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“Greece is guarding its borders. We are not hiding it, we have said it clearly, we are preventing illegal crossings. This is our sovereign right “, said the Minister of Immigration and Asylum, Notis Mitarakis, in an interview, commenting on yesterday’s question of the Dutch journalist during the press conference of the Prime Ministers of Greece and the Netherlands.

Speaking to the radio station “Parapolitika FM”, the Minister of Immigration noted that “the absoluteness of the rightists that international law says one thing or another, something we often hear from left-wing politicians, does not correspond to what international law really says.” He added: “He who can potentially take risks does not acquire a universal right of free movement to choose the country and place he wants.”

Mr. Mitarakis stressed that “immigration in Europe has changed. “Now we are talking about the instrumentalization of immigrants in the case of the Greek-Turkish border and in the case of the Belarus-Poland, Lithuania-Latvia borders and in the case of North Africa and Spain.”

As he pointed out, “immigration is not the romantic refugee that some may have in mind, they are now economic migrants by a large majority, it was also seen from the shipwreck we saved in the south of Crete and which Turkey refused to take back and we took it. “Two-thirds come from safe countries and the other one-third come through safe countries, which is why we have started a process with the embassies of Bangladesh and Pakistan to deport those who are in our country illegally.”

The minister underlined that “in Greece we do not want to be the gateway to Europe. “If there are EU countries that think they need to get a lot more migrants, let them open their airports and get as many people as they want and give humanitarian visas to those who want them.”

Finally, Mr. Mitarakis spoke of “major ideological differences in the European Union” describing that “there is a dichotomy between the European Council and the European Commission” and citing as an example “the Commission’s continuing refusal to finance the expansion of the Evros fence or the Belarus-Poland fence “. The fence of Evros “will be done with national funds, the amounts are not large”, he noted.

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