A reduction of irregular arrivals through the occupied by 50%, and a reduction of irregular arrivals from African countries to 76% has brought the informal implementation of some of the provisions of the EU Action Plan for the Eastern Mediterranean, he said in his statement on the sidelines of the Justice Council and Internal Affairs in Luxembourg the Minister of Internal Affairs Konstantinos Ioannou.
According to Mr. Ioannou, the completion and adoption of the plan which includes a series of measures on the part of the EU, which the Commission announced on Wednesday, “is a consequence of our own actions both of the current government and of the government of Nicos Anastasiades”.
“We are happy because the Action Plan has included almost all the actions that we proposed last May, both during my own trip to Brussels and in a presentation to the Heads of Diplomatic Missions of all EU member states,” he added.
Mr. Ioannou also thanked the Vice-President of the Commission Margariti Schina and the responsible Commissioner for Internal Affairs Ylva Johanson “for the enormous efforts they have made recently to complete the Action Plan”, as he said.
It is recalled that the action plan includes 29 targeted operational measures in four areas: preventing irregular departures, combating illegal migrant smuggling and providing legal migration routes, strengthening effective border management along the Eastern Mediterranean route, including countries of origin and transit, strengthening return and readmission cooperation with countries of origin and transit, and ensuring efficient migration management, improving asylum procedures and supporting adequate reception capacity.
Estimating that the practical implementation of the Action Plan will make the management of migration flows more effective, the Minister of the Interior noted that “already some provisions are implemented unofficially and in combination with our own actions, we have tangible results”.
“Currently, the arrivals of irregular immigrants from the occupied territories have decreased by more than 50% and from Africa have decreased to 76%,” he added, expressing the hope “that with the practical application of the remaining measures we will have even better results, if nothing changes in the external environment”.
