Instead of assuming its responsibilities, the government stages a show of xenophobic rhetoric

Statement by Marina Savva, Head of the Bureau for the Rights of Migrants of the Central Committee of AKEL

11 November 2021, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

The migration and refugee issue is a huge challenge that demands effective policies to handle it in accordance with international law, European and Cypriot legislation.

Due to the erroneous mismanagement by the Anastasiades-DISY Government, dozens of serious problems have surfaced today that need to be addressed. Instead of assuming its own responsibilities and addressing them, the Government is stages a show of xenophobic rhetoric.

The truth is that the government has failed to speed up the processing of asylum applications.

It has not made good use of the more than EUR 100 million that the European Union has allocated to Cyprus to address asylum issues.

It did not crack down on human trafficking and trafficking rings.

The truth is that the Anastasiades Government supported the EU-Turkey agreement and DISY voted for it in the European Parliament.

The Government that is protesting today supported EU decisions that trap asylum seekers in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta. In other words, they accepted without protest the decisions of the European Union that are cramming hundreds of people at its external borders and now they declare they will go and assert demands from Europe!

AKEL has specific proposals for a comprehensive immigration policy, which among other things provide for:

• Dynamically demanding inside the European Council for the immediate relocation of refugees and asylum seekers from Cyprus to other member states, the replacement of the EU-Turkey Agreement with the examination of the asylum applications by the UN and the EU on the territory of Turkey and the replacement of the Dublin System with a permanent and binding system of distributing applicants and refugees across all EU member states.
• Immediate recruitment of more personnel to staff the Asylum Service.
• Strengthening the Service to combat human trafficking.
• Better use of European funds in programmes to strengthen the reception conditions and integration of refugees and migrants into society.