Immigration Policy Update
A meeting has been arranged in late September between the EU interior ministers in Brussels ahead of the EU leaders' summit in October. In his last meeting, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis met with Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos to discuss the European pact on immigration and asylum, which was created to unify immigration policies across the European Union.
"The French EU presidency will advance the pact in October by having it signed by leaders of the EU member states," announced Pavlopoulos. He added that up until now there had been a delay by the member states to create a unified European policy for immigration and noted that 1.5 million to 2 million non-EU nationals enter the EU each year. He continued saying, "The main emphasis is on undocumented, non-EU migrants and not only how they can be integrated into Europe and, in particular, Greece but how they can be warned, prior to leaving their own countries, about human traffickers," he said.
He emphasised that last year alone Greece received 112,000 undocumented migrants, possibly the largest number of migrants to ever enter an EU country in one year. With the support of the EU, the country is now able to build reception centres for migrants such as those on the islands of Cyprus and Samos and, more recently, the one in the prefecture of Lakonia. Pavlopoulos also made a special mention of the center for children in the northwestern Athens suburb of Amigdaleza. As is true quite often the biggest victims are the children.