Public Order Minister Vassilis Kikilias and Merchant Marine Minister Miltiades Varvitsiotis accompanied visiting European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom on a tour of a new migrant reception center on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos. Malmstrom will also meet with Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras today.
The two ministers stressed that Greece needs additional European Union funding to continue monitoring adequately its borders, where an increase in immigrant flows is observed.
Malmstrom visited the new reception center, which is located north of the capital of Mytilene, on the island of Lesvos, while she also spoke to migrants being held there “about their fears and anxieties.”
In comments to reporters, Kikilias conveyed Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s concern regarding “the increase in migrant flows being observed along our country’s sea borders, particularly in recent months with the intensification of the fighting in Syria and Iraq.”
He noted that the influx is putting “extreme pressure” on the country’s infrastructure, adding that Athens had asked the European Commission for additional funding to enable it “to meet new needs regarding management of migration flows.”
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