Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 20, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 24, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleGreek PM Mitsotakis urges the EU to update its safe countries list to expedite the return of illegal migrants denied asylum, highlighting ongoing migration challenges.
ATHENS - Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that illegal migrants denied asylum by Greece should be returned to their country of origin, and he urged the European Union to provide a new list of "safe countries" to help speed up returns.
"We're looking forward with great eagerness to the new list of safe countries of origin, so that our country can move faster in this direction," Mitsotakis said on his arrival at an EU leaders' summit in Brussels.
Migration is one of the issues on the leaders' agenda, along with Ukraine and defence.
Greece was at the frontline of a migration crisis in 2015-2016, when more than one million people crossed into its territory by sea, looking to move further north in Europe.
Flows have declined since but illegal migration into the EU remains a hot political topic across Europe.
(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Gareth Jones)
The main topic is Greece's call to the EU to expedite the return of illegal migrants denied asylum by updating the list of safe countries.
Greece wants to speed up the return process of illegal migrants denied asylum by having an updated list of safe countries.
Greece was a frontline state during the 2015-2016 migration crisis when over a million people entered Europe through its borders.
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