Brussels, 02/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Monday 2 April, the Greek minister for protection of the citizens, Michalis Chrisochoidis, met the home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malsmtröm, to discuss the situation of asylum seekers in Greece, border management and the fight against illegal immigration and relations with third countries, notably Turkey. Greece, which regularly comes under fire for its management of asylum seekers, the weakness of its hosting infrastructures and its problems in absorbing European funds, has put together an action plan together with the EU to remedy its problems and new hosting and detention centres for asylum seekers are likely to be built in the next few days, said the minister, particularly in the area of River Evros, the main point of passage for migrants coming from Turkey. On this point, the minister said that the construction of the infamous barbed wire perimeter designed to prevent migrants from reaching Greece would indeed be started in the next few days.
However, Michalis Chrisochoidis came mainly to promise to step up efforts against illegal immigration, warning third countries that all migrants arriving in Greece and not applying for international protection would automatically be sent back to their country of origin. In hopes of sending out a “signal” to “traffickers” and to migrants tempted to come to Greece, the minister said that the country could no longer live with a “timebomb” of this kind on its territory, as illegal migrants constitute a threat to social cohesion, he argued, but also a sanitary challenge, he continued. This message is sent out more specifically to Turkey, which is still placing the condition of dialogue on visa facilitation on its signature of a readmission agreement covering its migrants with the EU. In Brussels on 8 March of this year, the home affairs ministers of the EU27 failed to make any progress at all on this issue, with certain member states refusing to open this dialogue on visas, and some of them, the forthcoming Cypriot Presidency of the EU included, even describing Ankara's requests as “blackmail”. (SP/transl.fl)