Cyprus will submit before the upcoming EU Home Affairs Council a proposal on a new common migration and asylum pact relieving vulnerable Mediterranean countries of some of the pressure from migrant flows.
Interior Minister Nikos Nouris will submit the proposal on behalf of the Med5 group of countries – that is Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Italy and Spain.
This is what Nouris has told the House Committee on Foreign and European Affairs.
Cyprus unreservedly supports a legal framework that will help manage the huge problem the divided island but also other counties in the region face, he also said. The EU now lacks a single migration policy.
He recalled that during the 2015 migration crisis asylum systems collapsed, mainly in Greece and Italy, due to the absence of a single legal framework.
“We do not want to experience something similar again and we are discussing with our European partners to conclude a Pact,” Nouris also said.
“Solidarity and redistribution, especially for Cyprus, a non-member state of the Schengen Area, is of utmost importance,” he added.
