More than 11 thousand new asylum applications were made in Cyprus in the first five months of 2022, Interior Minister Nikos Nouris said, citing figures he has presented to his counterparts at the MED 5 Summit in Italy, that in 2022 alone the five frontline countries - Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain and Malta - are expected to receive 150 thousand new asylum seekers.
In a statement to the Parliament, Mr. Nouris said that the latest meeting of the Interior Ministers of the five frontline countries, which face a number of problems from irregular migration, highlighted that there is a need for the EU to have a common immigration and asylum policy to tackle the huge issue of migration.
According to the MFA at the summit, they agreed to disagree on a number of issues, most notably the issue of solidarity, noting that "the French Presidency has taken a very important initiative, for which we have thanked it, to promote this need to have a single policy on migration and asylum".
At the same time, he said, "it is necessary to have what we call solidarity in practice and not in theory and certainly compulsory solidarity between member states and not on a voluntary basis."
[P NOURIS SAID THAT "the proposal put forward by the French Presidency and which is expected to be put before us again next Friday, in Luxembourg, is a voluntary solidarity pact, something about which we have expressed hesitation and caution as Cyprus", to note that the French Presidency has tabled the proposal documenting that there may be a possibility of relocation of 10 thousand asylum seekers between member states for 2022."At the same time, I have provided figures to my counterparts that in 2022 alone the five frontline countries are expected to receive 150 thousand new asylum seekers. Already Cyprus in the first 5 months of 2022 has exceeded 11 thousand new asylum applications. This raises the realistic question: f the French proposal is adopted it means that 10 thousand of the 150 new applicants will be relocated, so 140 additional ones will remain in the 5 frontline countries, which is almost practically impossible for the existing migration and asylum systems to cope with," he said.
The minister responsible said Cyprus' policy position is "first to have a kind of solidarity and relocation policy for asylum seekers among EU member states" and "second it is imperative for the European Commission to conclude centralised return agreements with a number of third countries, so that we can go ahead with this particular process."
Furthermore, he said that "security measures at the EU's external borders, including and the Green Line - which is not our external border, but it is the place where irregular migrants come from - should finally be intensified in order to limit the numbers."
"If there is no simultaneous adoption of these measures," he added, "I am afraid that the outlook on migration will be extremely bleak."
He assured that much more is being done than what is being announced, expressing hope that within this month Cyprus will be able to announce its own separate agreements with states so that it can achieve the returns.
However, he noted that "we have to be realistic," adding that "Cyprus is an extremely small state, facing the biggest of the problems in proportion to its population that other countries face."
He said that "we have reached almost 5% of the population in terms of asylum seekers, which is an excessive burden that we cannot lift on our own and of course the displacement of the small Republic of Cyprus in the possibility of concluding agreements, with other countries of return, is not the same as the EU itself".
Moreover, he noted that he cannot ignore that "we have achieved small in numbers, but important for the first time joint return flights, with countries with which there has never been a similar move such as Pakistan, Germany, etc."
He said, finally, that "the numbers are such that they do not even allow us to diminish, because we simply have huge numbers to manage."
Source: CNA
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