The Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned against the proposal to outsource its management processes to third countries immigration of the EU, at the start of the leaders’ summit in Brussels, where immigration is set to dominate the discussions.

Several leaders in Europe have been leaning towards such proposals in recent months, including Olaf Solz and Donald Tusk, with the European Commission now signaling it is open to “innovative” solutions, including return hubs for migrants set up outside the EU.

Italy this week launched a pilot system that involves forwarding migrants to a center in Albania.

However, in an interview with Financial Times on Thursday, Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed skepticism about calls to extend the Italy-Albania model across the EU.

“I want to be careful. This is a bilateral agreement. I don’t know if it could be replicated at the European level,” he said. “We also need to see if it actually works.”

He went on to say: “These people are being dealt with under Italian asylum law and whatever happens to them, one way or another they will return to Italy. If we did this at the European level…where would they go?’

He called on the EU to increase legal immigration alongside efforts to curb irregular entry, as there is a need for skilled and unskilled workers in Europe’s economy.

“If you want to build a big fence, you also need a big door,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, highlighting the labor shortage in Greece. “Who will pick our olives? We are a shrinking continent and we all recognize that to maintain our productivity, we will need a workforce, unskilled or skilled.”

As the southeastern gateway to the EU, Greece has historically been at the forefront of migration and has been criticized by human rights groups for mistreatment of seafarers seeking asylum.

Mitsotakis said that Greece had saved “thousands of people at sea”, but stressed that “we will make it difficult for people to enter”.

The Greek prime minister, who has been in power since 2019 and is a political ally of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, called on Brussels to redouble efforts to increase the number of irregular migrants being deported, which currently stands at 20% .

“There are people whose asylum applications are rejected and what we do with them has never been a matter of discussion,” Mr Mitsotakis said, highlighting a gap in the EU’s immigration regulatory framework. “Some of the ideas that have been put forward seem interesting to me . But I think we’re still in the early stages of coming up with a concrete proposal.”

Last week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he would temporarily suspend asylum for people entering the country through Belarus, citing efforts by Minsk and its ally Moscow to destabilize Poland.

His move came after Finland closed its border with Russia this year and Germany implemented border controls on all its borders, leading to concerns about the future of Europe’s borderless Schengen area.