Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis said Wednesday that the European Union is unable to cope with another migration crisis like the one that began in 2015 and must make efforts to keep people from fleeing Afghanistan.
Mitarakis last week signed a joint letter with ministers from five other EU countries, which said that the deportation of asylum seekers who have not been granted refugee status should continue. Since stopping these returns will “send the wrong signal” and encourage more number of Afghans break through to Europe.
The Greek minister said the EU should offer more support to help Turkey ease the pressure from more migrants coming from Afghanistan. He said the EU would not be able to cope with a re-crisis like the one it faced in 2015.
“The EU is absolutely unprepared and unable to deal with yet another major migration crisis,” Mitarakis told Reuters.
Many EU member states are concerned that events in Afghanistan could trigger a repeat of the 2015 European migration crisis, when more than a million people, most of them Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, arrived in Europe to seek refuge.
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