The chairman of the European People’s Party (EPP) Manfred Weber, in statements to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Wednesday, referred to a “migration emergency in the Mediterranean, but also in the rest of Europe.”
Weber made the statements after the developments in Italy with the Ocean Viking ship and the controversy that has broken out between Rome and Paris. Weber said that a European response is needed and stressed that “we cannot leave countries like Greece, Italy, and Cyprus alone in this.”
According to European sources, in 2022 the arrivals of undocumented migrants in the Eastern, Central, and Western Mediterranean have exceeded pre-pandemic numbers but remained significantly below the levels of 2015. From January to July 2022, the number of arrivals of undocumented migrants rose to 153,900, recording an increase of 85% compared to the same period in 2021. More specifically, between January and July 2022, arrivals in the Central Mediterranean increased by 42%, in the Eastern Mediterranean by 122%, and in the Western Mediterranean by 1% in comparison to the same period in 2021.
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Source: tornosnews.gr/en/