(Adnkronos) – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that the suspension of asylum applications for people from North Africa, voted on today by parliamentarians, is “absolutely necessary” in the face of increased migration flows. “We have taken the difficult but absolutely necessary decision to temporarily suspend the process of examining asylum applications,” he told the German newspaper Bild.
This decision, announced the day before yesterday, is explained by “the sudden increase (in the number) of irregular arrivals by sea from North Africa”, which the Minister of Migration, Thanos Plevris, described as an “invasion”. Parliament approved by a large majority, with 177 votes out of 293, an amendment providing for a three-month suspension of asylum applications, in particular for people arriving on the southern island of Crete, coming from Libya.
“This decision sends a clear message, which does not lend itself to any interpretation by the trafficking networks: Greece is not an open passage to Europe,” Mitsotakis further underlined, speaking to Bild. The prime minister, who has pursued a strongly restrictive migration policy since taking office in 2019, warned the day before yesterday, presenting the measure to parliamentarians, that any migrant who entered illegally would be “arrested and detained”.
Mitsotakis also promised the “creation, as a first step, of a permanent detention center in Crete”. About 8,000 people have arrived on the island since the beginning of the year, according to Migration Minister Thanos Plevris, compared to about 4,000 in all of 2024. Across Greece, more than 14,000 asylum seekers have entered since January. Since June, arrivals have further increased, exceeding 2,500, to the point that local authorities have raised the alarm, claiming that they do not have adequate reception facilities.
Yesterday, over 500 migrants intercepted off Crete were taken to Lavrio, a port near Athens, AFP found. They will then be transferred to reception facilities on the mainland. Thanos Plevris, a former member of a now-dissolved far-right party, said Greece “is not a hotel” for asylum seekers. “The message we are sending is clear: stay where you are. You are not welcome here,” he reiterated to migrants yesterday. “You will not blackmail” Greece, he added.
According to Plevris, his country “must protect its territory” and “cannot under any circumstances accept this massive invasion that is being prepared. No one can enter illegally, seek asylum and receive aid, three meals a day and accommodation, all at the expense of Greek and European taxpayers,” Thanos Plevris stressed to the Skai television channel. The leader of the radical left party, Pleusī Eleutherias, Course towards Freedom, Zoi Konstantopoulou, called the amendment “a shame and a disgrace that will haunt you (members of the Mitsotakis government) in history”. Zoi Konstantopoulou accused the Greek government of “putting racism back at the center of politics”.
