Threefold increase in illegal migrants arriving in Greece by sea

“This is a security issue for Europe,” says Camino Mortera-Martinez, a research fellow at the Centre of European Reform. “Greece has been rightly claiming that they need support from the EU, as most of the people coming to Greece are asylum seekers that have to be dealt with in Greece. There is not a lot of support economically and logistically to deal with the amount of asylum seekers from the European Union. But right now the relationship is not at its best between Europe and Greece”

While Mortera-Martinez believes that far-right populist parties like Golden Dawn will try and exploit this figure for their own political gain, she says that people living on the islands are more open to illegal migrants, and don’t view them as a threat.