Greece’s Minister of Migration & Asylum Thanos Plevris said any irregular migrants entering the country without identifying documents would be held in administrative custody during a debate on an immigration bill at a parliamentary plenum on Tuesday.
Responding to criticism by opposition parties on the refoulement process—the act of sending asylum seekers facing violence or persecution back to their countries—and that many would be returned to war-torn regions, Plevris said it would not cover migrants who had left their countries for economic reasons.
The minister said that “August in Crete passed without 6,000 arrivals because the amendment was passed and important work was carried out at the Foreign Ministry level with Haftar [the Libyan politician, military officer, and commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army].” He stressed that “there are policies that can reduce flows.”
Addressing left-wing parties, he said the framework on migration and returns would become stricter, accusing them of essentially wanting “all migrants who wish to come to Europe to be allowed to do so, and that carries a strong ideological imprint.”
In another part of his address, Thanos Plevris said that “obviously I need a migrant workforce, but it must come through legal channels,” announcing a forthcoming bill on “safe migration pathways.”
Referring to the draft legislation under debate in parliament, he noted that “what we are legislating now, we had been saying since 2019, while Europe was telling us we should allow these flows. We are now legislating at a pivotal moment—the Migration Pact.”
The minor opposition parties on the center-left called the new proposed bill “xenophobic” and “racist,” while the far-right-wing party “Greek Solution” accused the Greek government of not going far enough.
