Government sources cited today by the news agency "Ana-Mpa" have reported that Alexis Tsipras, Greek Prime Minister, during yesterday's meeting at the European Council said that the European Union needs an agenda for a social Europe that counterbalances the budget pact, underlining how the "European pillar" of social rights must be implemented with a view to balances with fiscal measures for balancing the budget.
According to the Greek press, the European Commission, France, Italy, Sweden and Portugal would have supported the proposal, while Germany would have left room for negotiation with respect to the issue relaunched by Tsipras.
Tsipras, before yesterday's summit, defined the proposal of the President of the European Council Donald Tusk, about the abolition of the system of quotas for the redistribution of migrants among the EU countries, "unhappy, out of time and unnecessary" reiterating that for Greece "it is not so important that some countries welcome 200 or a thousand refugees and that the Greek country will not accept any kind of change to the current agreement on European immigration policies".
On the issue of funding, the Greek minister argued that more flexible instruments would better reflect the current reality and allow third countries to absorb the funds, with the aim of integrating the objectives of the Greek country into EU migration policy.
Tsipras stressed that, despite differences on various national and ideological issues, it was precisely the issue of managing migratory flows to bring the Turkish head of state to Athens: supporting the south-eastern borders of the EU becomes increasingly important.