For months, Cyprus has been sounding the alarm that a possible collapse of Lebanon would lead to massive flows of Syrian migrants to the European Union, said Interior Minister Konstantinos Ioannou, noting that the outbreak of war in Gaza "confirmed the concerns in the worst way » of Nicosia. He spoke of "organized crime" taking advantage of people's need for safer lives, noting the need for "coordinated and effective action".
The Republic of Cyprus focuses on two directions, the reassessment of areas of Syria and the need to strengthen European support to Lebanon, said Mr. Ioannou, speaking on Tuesday during the press conference for the presentation of the report of the work of his Ministry, according to the first year of the Christodoulidis administration and planning for 2024.
According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, in 2022 asylum applications amounted to 21.565, while in 2023 to 11.617, i.e. within 2023 there was a reduction in new asylum applications by 50%.
In addition, in 2022 asylum seekers from African countries amounted to 9.384, while in 2023 to 2.607, i.e. there was a decrease of new asylum seekers from African countries by 85%. Asylum seekers from Syria in 2022 amounted to 4.088, while in 2023 there were 6.148, i.e. an increase of 50%. As for the rest of the countries, in 2022 asylum seekers amounted to 8.093 in 2022, while in 2023 to 2.862, i.e. there was a decrease of 65%.
Referring to immigration, the Minister of the Interior said that the Government's goal for 2024 is to complete the examination of asylum applications within 30 days.
He also stated that in the first quarter of 2024, Cyprus continues to record a positive sign, with 1.000 more returns compared to the corresponding period of 2023
Mr. Ioannou said, at the same time, that it is also a fact that the evolution of immigration "is not something that depends solely on our own actions or decisions, since it is affected by many unsettled factors, such as climate change, but mainly political developments , just as happened with the case of the war in our region.
He noted that in recent years, with a peak in 2021 and 2022, Cyprus has received suffocating pressures due to massive migration flows.
"As a result, it remains even today the country with the largest percentage of asylum seekers in relation to its population in the entire European Union, which makes the effort for effective immigration management difficult," he added.
In relation to immigration, the Minister of the Interior said that with the establishment of the Deputy Ministry, "we are intensifying our efforts as a Government to better deal with the immigration crisis".
"We continue the effort to implement measures internally, but also to exert pressure at the level of the European Union to take those decisions on the issue of Syria, to effectively deal with the problem," he said.
He noted that in 2024, the revision of the "NAVKRATIS" Plan is expected to be completed, and the information campaigns on voluntary returns, as well as the inspection campaigns on the illegal employment of immigrants, will continue.
"At the same time, the construction work continues for the creation of the Pre-Departure Center in Limnes and the completion of the infrastructure upgrade in Kofinou and Pournara", he added.
The Minister of the Interior also stated that for this complex issue which has been very high on the agenda for the last few weeks and monopolizes the interest of the entire Cypriot society, the Government adopted from the first moment a drastic and multi-level approach.
"In order to improve the difficult situation we received, from the beginning we aimed at four pillars, namely the reduction of arrivals, the speeding up of asylum application examination procedures, the increase of the number of returns and the improvement of reception and hospitality infrastructures," he added.
Through a series of targeted measures, the Minister continued, they succeeded in reducing new asylum applications by 2023% by 50, reducing new asylum seekers from African countries by 85%, shortening the time for examining asylum applications to three months , the processing of the examination of a significant number of pending asylum applications, the increase of refunds by 66%, the completion of the improvement works to convert the First Reception Center "Pournara" into a closed structure, the upgrading and expansion of the Reception and Hosting Center for International Protection Applicants Kofinou, the start of construction works for the creation of a Pre-Departure Center in Mennogeia, with a capacity of approximately 800 people, the preparation of the Action Plan for the Integration and Social Inclusion of Immigrants for the period 2024-2026, and the preparation by the European Union of a special Plan Action to deal with migration in the Eastern Mediterranean.
As he said, these measures have yielded visible results, particularly in the issue of asylum seekers from third-country nationals of sub-Saharan Africa, which has largely been reduced and could be said to be at a manageable level.
The Minister of the Interior made special mention of the field of returns, an area, as he said, "in which we invested very heavily from the very beginning, with very positive results, which forced the relevant European officials to use Cyprus as a point of reference" .
He emphasized, at the same time, that in the first quarter of 2024, Cyprus continues to record a positive sign, with a thousand more returns compared to last year's corresponding period.
"However, what remains as the biggest problem is the large number of arrivals of Syrian nationals who reach our country by sea from Syria and mainly Lebanon. As is known, Syria, since the start of hostilities in 2011 and until today, is considered an unsafe country according to the assessments of various competent organizations, which means that all Syrian nationals enjoy the status of supplementary protection", he added. .
This fact, continued the Minister of the Interior, demobilizes the competent Services "and does not give us the right to assess the individual circumstances of the applicants and to make refunds where and where there is proven exploitation of the system".
“As a result, the pressure on our country's reception and hospitality system is increasing. The proximity of Cyprus to Lebanon, where there are more than 1,5 million Syrians, makes it the number one attractive destination. At the same time, the economic, political and social developments inside Lebanon, as well as the geopolitical conditions in the Middle East region, limit the ability of the Lebanese authorities to respond satisfactorily to the surveillance of its coasts. "For months now, with our interventions to the European Commission, we have been sounding the alarm, underlining that the eventual collapse of Lebanon would lead to massive flows of Syrian immigrants to the European Union," he noted.
Unfortunately, the Interior Minister said, the outbreak of war in Gaza confirmed their concerns in the worst possible way.
"Lebanon's difficulty in controlling its coasts effectively allows organized trafficking rings to promote more people to Cyprus and European states. We have said many times that this is an organized crime that takes advantage of these people's need for a safer life and that requires coordinated and effective action," he added.
Mr. Ioannou also mentioned that as the Republic of Cyprus, they focus on two directions.
"On the one hand, through the diplomatic channel, we are pushing in the direction of the European Commission to reassess areas of Syria and declassify them from warlike to safe, so that people of Syrian origin are not automatically granted temporary protection status, but are examined on the merits of their asylum application. For this reason, both the President of the Republic and I have recently been in contact with our counterparts in states that have declared their identification with the Cypriot initiative on Syria", he noted.
Hence, the Minister continued, "and we are in the preparatory stage of a ministerial meeting in Cyprus, which will examine the external dimension of migration with an emphasis on the next steps for Syria, with the participation of the Ministers responsible for migration issues".
"Our aim is to join our voices in a coalition of countries with common concerns, but also to coordinate our actions. At the same time, we will participate in joint missions on the territory of Syria together with other member states, so that we can gather data to define areas as safe and be able to ensure the protection of conditions that really need it", he added.
On the other hand, said Mr. Ioannou, "for some time now, as the Republic of Cyprus, we have been warning about the need to strengthen European support to Lebanon, applying similar practices as in the case of Turkey and in the context of the institutionalization of an agreement between the European Union and Lebanon, in the same way as was previously done with Tunisia and Egypt".
"For this reason and as Cyprus, we exerted intense diplomatic pressure both on the European Union side and on the Lebanese side, so that the European Union strengthens the financial aid that Lebanon receives, provided that this is linked to the increase of Lebanon's operational capacity to exercise more effective surveillance along its coastline," he added.
In this context, the Minister said, the President of the Republic will go to Lebanon on May 2, together with the President of the European Commission, in order to discuss the issue of economic support for the country.
"At the Commission level, the effort is to prepare by then and present the support package for Lebanon," he said and reiterated that immigration is here to stay.
"A primarily social phenomenon, with humanitarian implications, with duration and changeable aspects. A problem which, as the example of Cyprus proves, is mainly an issue with an external dimension, which determines the developments from time to time", he concluded.
Source: KYPE