The Diplomat
The president of the Popular Party, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, praised Greece’s “fair, austere and humanitarian” migration policy yesterday in Athens compared to Spain’s “non-existent” one.
“Unfortunately we have seen in our country that the largest number of irregular immigrants arrive when the Socialist Party governs. And this is not a criticism, it is concrete data,” said the opposition leader, after a meeting he held with the Greek Prime Minister, the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Feijoó praised the “fair, austere and humanitarian” immigration policy that Greece has been applying for many years “with greater rigor than Spain,” and with which it achieved a reduction in irregular arrivals of migrants.
«The Greek policy is not one of swings, but rather a firm policy, it is a State policy», he stressed.
On the contrary, he considered that the Spanish Government lacks a migration policy and «the only thing it tries to do is to distribute the problem throughout the territory of our country».
«And the truth is that our migration policy is a non-existent policy. It is a problem that is trying to be distributed among the autonomous communities», added the leader of the PP.
Feijóo pointed out that both Greece and Spain are «first entry» countries towards Europe and, therefore, they must lead a common policy in the European Union.
He also defended the need for greater European involvement, proposing to intensify border surveillance, mobilise European funds, and strengthen agencies such as Frontex and also Europol.
Feijóo advocated new agreements with countries of origin and transit to better control migratory flows and combat human trafficking.
The opposition leader said that he had conveyed his plan “against the lack of control of migration” to both Mitsotakis and the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, Nikos Panayotópulos, with whom he also discussed the need to mobilise European funds and increase the return of irregular migrants.
He said that Athens is the first stop on a European tour in which he intends to find allies to address the challenges facing the EU, including migration.
“We want a European alliance against irregular immigration and this is a matter of State, but also European, hence the importance of Spain and Greece working together,” he stressed.
