A Memorandum of Cooperation on Immigration will be signed today, Monday, at the Presidential Palace by the Minister of Interior, Nikos Nouris, and the Vice President of the European Commission, Margaritis Schoinas. The signing ceremony will be attended by the President of the Republic Nikos Anastasiadis.
Mr. Schoinas, who is paying an official visit to Cyprus, said on Saturday that the memorandum of understanding between the Republic of Cyprus, the Commission and all relevant EU services and agencies will strengthen and improve operational cooperation on immigration. on the basis of a detailed joint action plan for migration management.
Last week, the Republic of Cyprus and FRONTEX reached an agreement on the conclusion of an operational action plan on immigration that will include the development of management and return systems, as announced by the Minister of Interior Nikos Nouris, after a meeting attended by the Executive Director. FRONTEX Border and Coast Guard Agency, Fabrice Leggeri and officials.
According to Mr. Nouris, this plan includes, among other things, strengthening the support that FRONTEX provides to the Republic of Cyprus by sending additional experts in the field of returns and verification of data of third country nationals.
It also provides for the implementation of regular return flights with full cost recovery from FRONTEX and technical support for the upgrade and development of migration flow management systems in the field of returns.
For his part, Mr. Leggeri referred to the need to increase and strengthen returns from Cyprus and said that this would be done using the means of the organization and the mandate it has to be able to develop the permanent body of the European Border and Coast Guard that will provides know-how and support on returns.
"Returns are in the spotlight as this is the most urgent need we have identified, but we can also do more with different activities, such as fake documents, border crossing points," he said.
Concluding, he said that the business plan agreed upon will be the roadmap on which the two teams will work together.