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The external dimension of the migration issue and the need to support third countries in order to create the necessary infrastructure for the reception and hosting of migrants, was the focus of the discussion at today's Ministerial Meeting on migration, which was held on the initiative of Interior Minister Mr. Constantine Ioannou, with the participation of Ministers and other high-level officials from Greece, the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Italy, Denmark and Malta. The Summit also discussed at length the proposal of the Republic of Cyprus to reassess the status of certain areas in Syria.
The participants signed Joint Statement, through which they reaffirmed their commitment to work together to promote realistic measures to strengthen efforts to address the challenges posed by migratory flows.
After the end of the Summit, the Minister of Interior held a press conference, taking stock of the outcome of the Summit. As he said, the countries that participated in today's meeting are member states that share Cyprus' concerns about the need to take joint actions for the effective management of the migration issue.
Responding to questions from media representatives, asked about the process of reassessing the status of Syria, Ioannou noted that at the moment we are not at the stage of making a unilateral decision. He underlined that everything is being assessed and stressed that "the important thing that we took away from today's meeting is that all eight countries agree that the procedures for taking the necessary measures for the safe return of Syrian refugees should be accelerated, at least on a voluntary basis in the first phase."
"We all agree that the facts on the ground have changed after 13 years."
"We all agree that the facts on the ground have changed after 13 years. We need to start the discussion on the evaluation. There is already a discussion today, as I have mentioned, with the UNHCR, who believe that it is appropriate financial support to create the conditions [SO THAT] they can return safely and remain safely, at least in terms of education, health, but also conditions where they can work and work," the minister noted. Ioannou went on to say that it was important that all eight countries participating in the Summit agree in this direction and have expressed their intention to push towards achieving this goal.
According to the Interior Minister, the external dimension was also discussed, in contrast to the discussions so far that have focused on the internal dimension of migration. The external dimension, namely the need to support third countries, the need to support Lebanon, Ioannou said, was recognized by all participants. "And Poland went one step further. We got a commitment from the Polish Deputy Minister that he will immediately raise the issue with the Polish Government to provide additional assistance and support to various projects in Lebanon to support the country, to increase its capacity to be able to guard its borders and limit migration flows. So, the external dimension and the need to support the countries that bear the burden, whether it is Egypt or Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco, is what we agreed that more emphasis should be given to Europe and this is the direction we will push in," the Interior Minister underlined.
At the same time, the Minister referred to the situation inside Lebanon, with social and economic instability, which is further aggravated by geopolitical regional developments in Gaza. He noted that there was a risk of further deterioration of the situation in Lebanon at any time, and that the country should therefore be further supported. "Any collapse of Lebanon will have disastrous consequences first for Cyprus, because of our geographical proximity, but then for the rest of Europe. It is for this reason that on the initiative of President Christodoulides, Mrs. Von der Leyen announced the aid package, and now we and the rest of the countries have agreed that this aid must be reinforced even more, precisely to prevent the worst in Lebanon," the Cypriot Minister said.
Finally, in response to a question, the Interior Minister explained: "In the first stage we are talking about voluntary returns (in case of de-characterization of areas in Syria). Forced returns require cooperation with the Assad regime, which at the moment does not exist. So, certainly the next step is some voluntary returns or to consider forced returns, but more needs to be done to achieve this. For example, there are countries at the moment in the European Union that are rejecting requests, but they cannot do forced returns because there is no recognition of the status in Syria, which is a necessary condition."
(MK/GS/NZ)
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