“I consider that the issue of the fence on Evros is a given not only for the people living there, but it is a given for the vast majority of our fellow citizens that a sovereign country must have ways to effectively protect its borders,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Saturday in an interview with Thessaloniki radio.
“After the attempted migration invasion in March 2020, it became absolutely obvious to me that we need a strong deterrent that will support our overall policy for guarding the borders,” the prime minister explained and added:
“Obviously the fence is not the only tool we have at our disposal, but we have hired many border guards, we have strengthened the technological means to monitor the entire border, and we have strengthened the coast guard to monitor our maritime borders.”
“In essence, what impresses me is why something that should be self-evident becomes a field of political confrontation and reaches the point where the main opposition, through Mr. Papadimoulis, officially requests that this project not be financed by European funds,” he added.
“I find it unimaginable that there is a Greek MEP asking that this fence be actually paid for by the Greek taxpayers,” the prime minister said.
Referring to SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, he said, “I don’t know what Mr. Tsipras will do, because I hear many different voices. But I’m absolutely sure that if he doesn’t destroy the part of the fence that has been built, he won’t expand the fence and he won’t implement the project that we have launched.”
