Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is ready to sign a deal with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to make it easier for Germany to send asylum seekers back to other European countries, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Tsipras told the FT he was open to a special agreement with Berlin to curtail the “secondary movement” of refugees that arrive at the European Union’s southern border but then journey north to Germany and added that the EU’s existing rule book for allocating responsibility for asylum-seekers was “out of life.”
“We don’t care about the fact that maybe we’ll have some returns from Germany if this will help, in order to give the signal to the smugglers [that Europe is tackling illegal migration flows],” said Mr Tsipras. He added that the EU’s existing rule book for allocating responsibility for asylum seekers, known as the Dublin regulation, was “out of life”.
Merkel said on Sunday she would seek direct deals with separate European Union states on migration, conceding the bloc had failed to find a joint solution to the issue threatening her government.