Tsipras: Tusk's proposal on refugee quotas is unfortunate, untimely and unnecessary
The proposal by European Council President Donald Tusk to scrap mandatory quotas on relocating asylum seekers across the European Union is unfortunate, untimely and unnecessary, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will say in an interview with state TV channel ERT3, which will be broadcasted later on Wednesday.
He said Greece will not accept any changes in the current agreement and that the proposal "has little chance of being adopted" by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels.
Tsipras will say that the country has suffered doubly over the past few years by the EU's mistakes and weaknesses, citing outgoing Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem who claimed that the first and second bailout programs aimed at saving European banks and not the Greek economy.
He also said that in 2015, Greece was faced with the largest migration wave since World War II.
On Tuesday, EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos slammed Tusk's proposal, saying it is "unacceptable" and "anti-European".
Asked about the country's exit from the bailout program in 2018, he said he "will be the first to take the country out of the memorandums in which others have put us."
"Today, the keys to the state budget safe do not belong to the Greek government, they are held by our lenders. We will take those keys after August 2018 and that will be a landmark moment for the country," he said.
He defended the government's work, saying it has succeeded where the governments of former prime ministers George Papandreou and Antonis Samaras failed.
Tsipras also said he wants the next elections in September 2019 to be about Greece's future and for his government to be judged by its results.
Source: ANA-MPA
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