Akel lambasts Cyprus’ positive spin on EU migration deal

Opposition party Akel on Tuesday lambasted the interior minister’s positive spin on the migration agreement announced last Thursday by the EU ministerial council.

In its statements, Akel bashed the agreement, hailed by many as “historic” and a breakthrough in terms of solidarity with frontline states, as “anything but solidarity”.

The agreement does not go far enough to provide for Cyprus’ migrant needs, Akel stated, which remain the creation of a mechanism for the fair redistribution of refugees and asylum seekers throughout the EU.

Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou after the meeting had tweeted, “We reached an important agreement regarding the first essential step for border procedures and the creation of a solidarity mechanism [which has been] a constant request of the Republic of Cyprus and other frontline states that are under intense immigration pressure.”

The minister in follow-up statements outlined how arrangements discussed included provision for reallocation of third-country nationals to other member states, based on quotas to be determined by the European Commission, with the alternate possibility for member states to express solidarity by means of financial and logistical support.

The opposition party, however, took a very different read of the situation, saying that what the so-called solidarity agreement essentially enables, is the offloading of unwanted migrants and refugees from wealthier member states to poorer and frontline states.

Countries that do not want to take on hosting asylum seekers from the southern Mediterranean, will be permitted to merely pay an amount per head, to absolve themselves of the responsibility, Akel said.

This amount, still under negotiation but reported to be around €20,000 per head, will be deposited into a European fund for hosting of refugees in reception countries or in third countries.

According to Akel, the agreement reached by the EU interior ministers essentially puts a price tag on asylum seekers to be paid by rich northern countries with the south becoming an “unwanted people-warehouse”.

At the same time, Akel continues, the EU will finance the North African states with billions of euros, in a misguided attempt to replicate the problematic EU-Turkey agreement.

The EU-Turkey deal was a statement of cooperation between EU states and the Turkish government, signed in March 2016.

It agreed on three key points, that Turkey would take any measures necessary to stop people travelling irregularly to the Greek islands; that anyone arriving on the islands irregularly could be returned to Turkey; and that for every Syrian returned from the islands, EU member states would accept one Syrian refugee waiting in Turkey.

In exchange, Turkey would receive €6 billion to improve the humanitarian situation faced by refugees in that country and Turkish nationals would be granted visa-free travel to Europe.

The message was supposed to be clear, that those attempting to reach Greece irregularly would be swiftly returned, while those who waited patiently in Turkey would have the chance to enter the EU.

In the hands of Erdogan, that has become a weapon with which to blackmail the EU and a means of violating human rights, the opposition party said.

Akel’s stated demand is for the creation of a more definitive mechanism for the redistribution of refugees and asylum seekers in the EU, according to the capabilities and population size of each member state.

For Cyprus, it is necessary to formulate a comprehensive and fair immigration policy based on international and European conventions that makes full use of European funding for immigration, asylum and integration policies, the opposition party concludes.