{"id":99925,"date":"2025-05-14T05:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T05:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/99925\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T05:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T05:04:08","slug":"german-greek-pms-stay-tough-on-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/99925\/","title":{"rendered":"German, Greek PMs stay tough on migration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"600\" class=\"picture-main-block-image\" data-nxsrc=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/mistotakis-merz.jpg?v=1747163419\" alt=\"German, Greek PMs stay tough on migration\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/mistotakis-merz-960x600.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>[Dimitris Papamitsos\/Greek Prime Minister&#8217;s Office]<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz broadly agreed on several issues Tuesday, such as defense, Ukraine and migration, with some small, but significant differences.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the tone of the first official meeting of the two leaders, both members of the center-right European People\u2019s Party, in Berlin, was positive, even unusually so compared to past summits, when Greece\u2019s subpar economic performance was a frequent source of friction.<\/p>\n<p>Merz, who was approved by the German parliament last Tuesday, said he was \u201cespecially glad the Greek prime minister is the first visiting foreign leader.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur relations have been tested, but have matured,\u201d Mitsotakis told reported in a common press conference, while lauding the Greek economy as \u201camong the most stable in the EU\u201d and an attractive destination for German investments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe agreed to expand economic cooperation,\u201d said Merz.<\/p>\n<p>On migration, both leaders believe that \u201cthe new, strict rules on asylum must be implemented immediately,\u201d as Merz stated. But the German chancellor also warned that \u201csecondary migration from Greece to Germany must be reduced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have not agreed on everything on how to [approach] this issue, but I understand the German viewpoint,\u201d said Mitsotakis. \u201cLikewise, I ask for Germany\u2019s understanding on what it means to be in the difficult position to have to protect Europe\u2019s borders,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Kathimerini understands that, for the first time, Germany demanded a slice of the pie in Greece\u2019s armaments program, expected to cost up to \u20ac28 billion over the next 12 years. Germany has been forced by developments in Ukraine to abandon its previous reticence to expanding its weapons production and exports.<\/p>\n<p>A thorn in the weapons issue is Germany\u2019s decision to export the advanced Eurofighter aircraft to Turkey.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Dimitris Papamitsos\/Greek Prime Minister&#8217;s Office] Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz broadly agreed on several&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,12072,1824,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-99925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-foreign-affairs","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114504445453336836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}