By Penelope Galliou

His visits to cutting-edge ministries that manage critical sectors of the country’s daily life and security continue, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakiswho at 11 am will be at the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum, which changed leadership in the recent reshuffle, from Dimitris Kairides to Nikos Panagiotopoulos.

Already from the first 24 hours that he assumed his new duties, Mr Nikos Panagiotopoulos gave the stamp of his intentions and the policies he will launch in the next period to strengthen the proper management of immigrants in the country, and in the direction that the Ministry of Immigration “is not a mechanism for facilitating but controlling immigration”. Direction prioritizing intensified controls on illegal immigration and creating operating rules for legal immigration.

According to ministry sources, the new Minister of Immigration and Asylum has requested even greater controls, while special attention will also be given to everyday issues, regarding the improvement of the conditions of the structures in which immigrants live, but also that there be corrective interventions in issues related to of land workers, which Greek production needs and there must be an acceleration in the procedures.

As far as migration flows are concerned, although the situation of the war zones in the wider Mediterranean region gives a dynamic to this risk, well-informed sources emphasize that the situation is under control and point out that the capacity in the KYT is at 50%.

Besides, on the occasion of her World Refugee Day, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, stated among other things that “the particularly fluid geopolitical environment, the ongoing wars in our wider region, climate change, the food crisis and other factors of instability, prescribe an increasing trend in refugee and immigrant flows”. In this light, the vigilance of the Ministry of Immigration and all involved bodies is a given as, as competent sources emphasize, the ever-increasing pressures require comprehensive solutions to deal with the issue as a whole, since no country alone can deal with the problem .

However, in parallel with the internal domestic vigilance, Nikos Panagiotopoulos is expected to be in Brussels in July where he will have a series of contacts on the issues of the ministry and the management of the immigration issue as a European issue and not exclusively Greek. In the next period, it is also expected that a meeting will be scheduled between the Minister of Immigration and his Turkish counterpart, given that in recent months there has been remarkable cooperation between the two sides of the Aegean, with the neighbor in recent months not only increasing checks but and to have good cooperation with the Greek side.

This road map, in the area of ​​immigration and the impact it has on the daily life of the Greek citizen, is expected to be unfolded by the prime minister together with the leadership of the ministry, addressing his right-wing audience, which is estimated to have expected more active policies in this area. After all, the choice of Nikos Panagiotopoulos to the ministry in question is in itself a message to these ND voters and especially the northern Greeks, with the minister, coming from Kavala, having fought a tough pre-election battle – as the head of the ND election campaign – throughout the period before the European elections.

The European elections and the ND’s “electoral performance” will also be at the center of the meeting of the ND’s parliamentary group tomorrow, Wednesday, which is expected to be held behind closed doors, in order for the meeting to act as a relief valve from the grumbling that caused so much result, as well as whether or not the ballot box messages were received correctly.