Responding to criticism over those comments, which had been publicly endorsed by former health minister Thanos Plevris, Georgiadis claimed he had been referring to the International Criminal Court rather than the International Court of Justice, although his original post does not make such a distinction.
He went on to argue that Amnesty International “opposes the basic interests of European peoples” and noted that several European prime ministers had asked for “intervention” in human-rights jurisprudence relating to migration. “I stand with the European powers asking us to reconsider whether pushbacks are illegal,” he said.
Georgiadis then openly declared support for pushbacks, without clarifying how such operations, prohibited because they endanger lives and violate the principle of non-refoulement, could take place legally. “A boat cannot leave Libya with 400 people and arrive unmolested. Because one becomes hundreds,” he said. “I didn’t say to kill them, to push them.”
He added that conditions had changed since pushbacks were deemed unlawful and framed the issue as existential for Europe. “If one billion persecuted people from Africa come, can Europe withstand it? We have reached an existential point for European peoples and European civilisation and must look at these things again.”
Georgiadis concluded by claiming that Greece “recognises international law and the International Criminal Court” but “will not allow the country to be destroyed,” citing the phrase “the salvation of the people is the supreme law.”
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