The government accepts what other right and far-right governments demand and in Cyprus vents its anger on refugees

Statement by AKEL MP Giorgos Koukoumas after the meeting of the Parliamentary Foreign and European Affairs Committee

AKEL on the EU Migration and Asylum Pact

The EU’s asylum and immigration policy is governed by the notorious Dublin Regulation, which places responsibility on the first EU member state into which an applicant for international protection has entered. This, in practice, means that all refugees are trapped in the Mediterranean south.

Unfortunately, the European Commission, with its proposed New Asylum Pact, continues and maintains this principle in contrast, of course, to the Left both in Cyprus and in Europe, but also the entire European Parliament, which has called for the Dublin Regulation to be replaced by a system in which refugees would be compulsorily distributed among all member states according to their respective capacities.

We are calling on the Government of Cyprus to make it clear that it will not accept the continuation of the Dublin Regulation, i.e. refugees being trapped in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta. And that it will not repeat the mistake it made in 2013 when it agreed to it during the revision of this Regulation.

It doesn’t make sense and it isn’t logical, in the Councils of the European Union for the Anastasiades government to accept what the other right-wing and ultra-right governments of Europe are demanding and in Cyprus to vent its anger on refugees.