Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis held a meeting today at Maximou Mansion with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Filippo Grandi, who is paying a two-day visit to our country, during which, he has scheduled meetings with local authorities and NGOs representatives that are active in the areas of refugee and migration affairs.
Mr Mitsotakis and mr. Grandi had an extensive discussion on the challenges that our country has been faced with in recent years due to the increased migration and refugee flows from Turkey and the need to provide appropriate responses to the crisis.
They also discussed the decisive contribution of the Office of United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Greece in preparing and launching the Asylum Service, as well as its substantial staffing support at both key entry points as well as inland for the expedited examination of thousands of international protection requests that are being submitted to the relevant authorities.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister briefed Mr Grandi on the Government’s new ‘No Child Alone’ initiative, which aims to create housing structures for unaccompanied minors, in cooperation with the European Union, UNHCR and other civic partners..
Finally, the Prime Minister briefed Mr Grandi on efforts within the EU to reform the Common European Asylum System, as well as on the new asylum law recently adopted by the Greek Parliament, while stressing the need for strict compliance with the Declaration between the EU and Turkey of March 2016 by the Turkish side.
The meeting was also attended by Ms Pascale Moreau in charge of the UNHCR office in Europe, Philippe Lecrerc, UNHCR representative in Greece, Dustin Okazaki, a partner in Mr Grandi’s office while from the Government’s side by the Minister for Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochidis, the Minister of State George Gerapetritis, Deputy Minister for Citizen Protection responsible for Migration Policy George Koumoutsakos, the Director of the Diplomatic Bureau of the Prime Minister, Ambassador Alexandra Papadopoulou, the Director of the General Secretariat of European Affairs for the Prime Minister, Dimitris Mitropoulos and the Director of the Prime Minister’s Press Office Dimitris Tsiodras.
