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GreeceΚοτζιάςKotzias: ‘Greece is enlisting all means to protect European borders’
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Greece has enlisted all possible means to protect the maritime borders of the European Union but these measures are not effective because people still want to flee, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias told German daily “Tageszietung”, on the sidelines of his official visit to Berlin on Friday.
Asked to comment on the criticism leveled against Greeks that they could beef up maritime patrols to better protect Europe’s external borders, Kotzias said: “But we are already doing that, and it isn’t achieving anything. If we wanted to stop the refugees, we would have to carry out a war against them, bomb them, sink their boats and leave the people to drown … It’s out of the question.”
He also said the government has spent approximately 2 billion euros for shelters, food, transportation and healthcare, noting that “for us, €2 billion is a great deal of money”.
Asked if building fences would greatly increase the money needed for refugees and migrants to pass into Europe and thus decrease flows, the minister responded that traffickers would simply ask for other kinds of payment. “Right now they just want money. But they might later, for example, ask for body parts, like a kidney, let’s say.”
The only way to curb the wave of people crossing into the EU is to fight the causes of the problem, which is to bring peace to Syria. “One of the big mistakes was the inadequate funding of the reception and accommodation spaces for the refugees in Lebanon and Jordan,” Kotzias said, adding that it would be better for the Syrians if they could stay closer to their country.
He also noted that only 55 pct of the refugees who have passed through Greece since December 2015 are of Syrian origin, while the rest come from Morocco and Algeria. To stop them, he continued, it would be much more effective for the Turkish government to establish the requirement of an entry and transit visa for Moroccan and Algerian nationals. “In this way, no one could simply fly to Istanbul and then get into an inflatable boat.”