Greece assumed the presidency of the International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in Brussels on Wednesday, through Migration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Kairidis. Greece is assuming the presidency from Turkiye.
ICMPD was founded in 1993 to help EU members with the development and implementation of long-term strategies to cope with the migration phenomenon, by providing field-based expertise.
Addressing the event were European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, Permanent Representatives of Greece and Turkiye (Ambassadors Yiannis Vrailas and Faruk Kaimakci, respectively), and ICMPD Director General Michael Spindelegger, also former Austrian foreign minister. Attending were New Democracy deputies, permanent representatives of European countries, European Commission officials, and journalists from several countries including Greece.
In doorstep statements, Kairidis said, “Greece is assuming today the presidency of the ICMPD at a very critical time, when the global environment is continuously being burdened with new crises. We have a duty of continuing our struggle against illegal migration, in collaboration with European countries and countries of origin and transit of these flows, and at the same time of guaranteeing legal alternative routes of legal migration, thought-out and based on the needs of Greek and European economy. This is what Greek migration policy supports, and this is also the role and motto of the Greek presidency. Before powers of the extreme, we support a policy of solutions, European solutions, based on European values and on the common European interest.”
ICMPD’s Spindelegger underlined that the center “needs a strong leadership, and Greece is a country that provides it. We need a very clear message, and the minister with his team have given us guidelines.”
In a public discussion that followed, Kairidis described the Greek presidency’s goals and stressed the importance assuming the presidency from Turkiye, with which there is an improved collaboration in managing the migration issue. The minister also expressed his concern over developments in the Middle East, and referred to the Greek government’s initiatives for legal migration through terms and rules – based on the needs of the Greek economy – and through the signing of bilateral agreements with friendly countries, as well as through the administrative modernisation and upgrading of the legal migration mechanism.
(File photo)
