Alexis Tsipras met Chancellor Angela Merkel in Brussels on Friday on the sidelines of an EU summit to hammer out a bilateral deal on irregular migration affecting Greece and Germany.
Merkel told reporters she had struck bilateral deals with Spain and Greece, but said no such deal had been made with Italy, another southern European country struggling to deal with the migration crisis.
The deal with Greece comes as an EU summit agreed that member states would take in some migrants rescued from the Mediterranean sea route, but exact details on the agreement remain sketchy.
However, the bilateral deal with Greece will see Athens readmit asylum seekers identified by the German authorities at their border. Germany will “gradually accept and conclude the family reunification cases in Greece and Spain with a view to guaranteeing family unity” it states.
The operational nature of the deal will be ironed out in the next four weeks.
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