Greece’s prime minister Antonis Samaras on Monday met with his Italian and Maltese counterparts, in an effort to coordinate policies on migration and to seek more help from their European Union partners.
During a press conference in Malta, attended by the country's PM Joseph Muscat, Mr. Samaras noted that migration is a burden on the Greek economy, which is in its sixth year of recession. “There are as many unemployed people in Greece as there are illegal immigrants,” the Greek PM said. The statement can just be heard from the 2:35 mark in the video below (source: Malta Today).
The wording echoes a 1978 slogan used by the National Front, a French far-right party, then led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of the party’s current leader, Marine. “One million unemployed is one million migrants too many. [Put] The French first”, was the slogan (source: Le Monde, in French).
During a one day lightning trip, Mr. Samaras successively flew to Malta and Italy to respectively meet Messrs. Muscat and Enrico Letta, as to forge a common front ahead of an EU leaders’ summit next week.
Mr. Muscat said it remains to be seen whether there is political will “behind the words of solidarity which Europe spoke so much about following the recent tragedies”.
He was referring to the Lampedusa tragedy, where hundreds of migrants drowned when their vessel sank off the said Italian island earlier this month.
Mr. Samaras agreed that the problem of migration had to be dealt at a European level. “Our borders are Europe's borders and human trafficking is knocking on our doors,” he said.
In a statement later Monday, Mr. Letta said that Italy would “stand firm” on the subject of illegal immigrants.
Migration is not on the formal agenda of the European Council meeting next Thursday.
Malta, Greece and Italy are among the Mediterranean countries who are calling for “concrete action” from the EU over migratory pressures. Between 2007 and 2013, Greece received €376 million to manage migratory and asylum flows, and €89 million in border management funds.
Greece is set to assume the EU’s rotating presidency in the first half of 2014 and Italy in the second half.