People walk on a beach after attempting to cross from the Moroccan northern town of Fnideq to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday. [AP]
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis joined 21 other European Union leaders in signing a letter to the bloc’s leadership asking for a coordination of migration policies and criticizing Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s project of regularization of undocumented migrants as providing an impetus for the mass crossing into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the northern African coast bordering Morocco.
Sanchez, in return sent his own letter, slamming the “selfish, polarizing and unlawful reaction” of some of the other leaders, most likely referring to those, such as his Italian colleague Giorgia Meloni, who announced the suspension of the Schengen Treaty with Spain. The treaty guarantees freedom of movement among the EU countries who are parties to it (the exceptions being Cyprus and Ireland).
Even when almost all EU member-states clearly disapproved of the SYRIZA-led Greek government’s attempt, in 2015, to force the bloc to abandon its demand for strict austerity policies, their displeasure was never formally expressed in a letter.
The 22 leaders’ letter was addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen; President of the European Council Antonio Costa; and Micheal Martin, Irish prime minister, as Ireland holds the rotating six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union. Beyond Greece, the leaders of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden also signed it.
