Greek Prime Minister Alexis blamed austerity and a lack of Europe-wide cooperation to deal with the migrant crisis as behind the result of Thursday’s referendum in Britain over continued EU membership.
Tsipras, who himself called a snap referendum last summer on a proposal tabled at the time by Greece’s institutional creditors, said malaise in the EU should be urgently addressed.
“The extreme choices of austerity, which widened inequality between countries of the north and south of Europe; fences and closed borders and a denial to share the burden of the debt and migrant crises, signaled an extended crisis in Europe,” he was quoted as saying on state-run television.
“We urgently need a new vision and beginning for a united Europe – for a better Europe, more social and democratic,” the Greek premier said.
Tsipras’ leftist Greek government has tried, but mostly failed, to deflect creditors’ demands for deep structural reforms and fiscal targets in the recession-battered country, such as primary budget surpluses through 2018.
Another leitmotif by Athens, debt relief, has also failed to coalesce into a consensus amongst international lenders, although European partners agreed to a “road map” for debt relief last month.
Additionally, Athens appeared unprepared to deal with a sudden surge in the number of refugees and migrants arriving — via Turkey — onto a handful of Greek isles over the past year and a half, a period that corresponds with Tsipras’ tenure in power.
Unwilling to initially block the arrival of refugees landing on the islands, the Greek government then facilitated third country nationals in using ferry boats to reach the Greek mainland, before they began a journey through the so-called “Balkan route” towards the rest of Europe. The crisis finally abated when countries along the route closed their borders, especially the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM). The development led to an EU-Turkey readmission protocol for refugees and migrants and a NATO operation in the eastern Aegean.
