Greece should not be burdened with the task of dealing with illegal migration to the European Union on its own, lest it be accused of failing to rescue those lost at sea, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday, as quoted by Reuters.

Migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean SeaPhoto: Antonio Balasco / Alamy / Profimedia Images

His comments came almost a month after a shipwreck in which the Greek coast guard rescued 104 migrants who were in an overcrowded boat. But hundreds of other passengers are believed to have died in one of Europe’s worst such disasters.

The causes of the shipwreck that happened off the coast of Greece are still being investigated. Some survivors said the boat sank after a failed towing attempt by the Greek coastguard, a claim strongly denied by Athens authorities.

Mitsotakis, who won parliamentary elections on June 25, said on Monday that his country sits on a border that intersects with “very dangerous” routes from the Mediterranean Sea for migrants trying to reach the European Union.

Greece’s prime minister said a package of migration reforms recently proposed by European authorities was a step forward, but it was not the only solution to what he called a “fundamentally European” problem.

He called on the European Commission to find a broader solution.

The Greek prime minister blames smugglers who promise migrants to deliver them to Europe

“It is very unfair for countries like Greece (…) to be burdened with this problem or to be accused of not actually rescuing people who are lost at sea, when our coast guard does it every day,” said Mitsotsakis during the press conference he held in Riga together with his Latvian colleague.

“We must place the blame solely on the shoulders of smugglers and those who help them. They bear the ultimate responsibility for any tragedy that happened in the Mediterranean Sea,” he added.

Greece is one of the main routes to the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

In 2015, almost one million migrants and refugees crossed from Turkey to the EU via the Greek islands in the context of the crisis triggered by the civil war in Syria and unrest in the region, but the number has decreased significantly in the following years.