S. FLOGAITIS: As you know, Mr. President, a meeting of European Foreign Ministers will be taking place this Friday and Saturday, on the initiative of Luxembourg, which currently holds the Presidency. And the purpose of my visit to you is to ask for your advice on various issues that are to be discussed, given that Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis asked me to represent the country.
As you know, very important issues are to be discussed, including the migration issue. As far as I remember, you are the ‘migration policy’ person, from your older capacity as well, and I am sure that your guidance and thoughts, particularly on this issue, as well as on the other issues I will have the opportunity to present to you shortly, will be very useful.
PRESIDENT: I congratulate you again on your new duties, and I wish you strength. I am particularly pleased that your first mission is to this informal meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, which will deal with important issues, and mainly the migration issue. And I am pleased that you have held the post of caretaker home affairs minister twice in the past. In fact, in 2009 you happened to deal with similar issues at that time. So, beyond your academic and professional experience, there is also your similar experience with these issues. And it is a happy coincidence that you will have this responsibility.
I think this is a great opportunity for there to be a response to all of the talk of late regarding what Greece’s policy on these matters is. An opportunity to show that there is a policy and that we need to highlight the responsibilities that others have in this area as well.
I say this, Mr. Minister, because it is well known – and I will reiterate it, at the risk of being tiresome, but it is true – that Europe will not discover its immigration policy today. Its immigration policy was set down in 2008, in the Immigration and Asylum Pact. What Europe needs to remember today, and take corresponding responsibility for, is that this Pact must be implemented. The four pillars that concern illegal migration and asylum, in particular, must be fully implemented.
And of course I am pleased that everyone sees the correctness of our longstanding positions. The correctness of the position that, following the Pact on Immigration and Asylum, the borders of the member states and the borders of Greece are also the borders of Europe; that in such critical hours, in particular, with such heavy migration flows, Europe is responsible for protecting the borders. All the more so when Frontex, for some time now, should have been developed into a kind of Europol, so that the European Union might protect the borders. And I say this because I was pleasantly surprised, for example, to see Manfred Weber, the head of the Parliamentary Group of the European People’s Party, stress precisely this in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: That the borders of the member states are also the borders of the European Union, and that Frontex needs to take on this responsibility. I am pleased that they are now starting to understand the problem. And I think that you are the right person to highlight at this Meeting precisely what Greece has been stressing for years now.
S. FLOGAITIS: I am honoured by your words. I’ll do my best.
September 1, 2015