Athens News Agency: News in English, 08-06-04

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] PM confers with interior minister

[01] PM confers with interior minister

Pavlopoulos told reporters after the meeting that these issues concern the entire European Union, which he said delayed in preceding years to take initiatives for formulation common rules and common policies, and added that France, which takes over the rotating EU presidency from Slovenia for the second half of the year, has focused most of its attention in this area, aimed at completion of a pact on migration among the 27 member states by the end of the year.

The minister stressed that Greece was a protagonist in this area, given that "we are a country that faces the biggest problems, due to its geographical position, regarding illegal migration issues, and particularly in matters of asylum, which are more intense and more different in our country than in other, northern, EU states".

Pavlopoulos explained that he had put this issue forward at the preceding meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg, and will do so again on Thursday, and also on the basis of what has been agreed with his French counterpart.

Thus, he continued, now it is Greece that will take the necessary initiatives so as to have a substantive role in the formulation of European policy on immigration and asylum and in order to for the EU to contribute to the creation of the necessary infrastructures given the predictions that the wave of illegal migration, due to the circumstances in the wider region, will increase.

Greece's goal, Pavlopoulos said, was protection of human rights, stressing that the country's history and culture "mandates that we do what is necessary so that all these people, who are seeking a better destiny, will have the fate they deserve, but this is a common effort of all the EU member countries, and that is the direction that we will follow at tomorrow's council of interior ministers".

Caption: ANA-MPA file photo of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis(R) and Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos(L)

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