‘Who is going to pick our olives?’ Greek PM warns against being too tough on migration

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis cast doubt on suggestions the EU could process asylum applications outside the bloc — and added that Greece actually needs migrant laborers to harvest its olives.

“Let me be careful here. This is a bilateral arrangement,” Mitsotakis told the Financial Times on Thursday, referring to Italy’s deal with Albania to establish detention centers in the non-EU country for male migrants who arrive by sea.

“I don’t know whether it could be replicated at the European level,” he added. “We also have to see if it actually works. These people are processed according to Italian asylum legislation, and whatever happens to them, they will in one way or another, be returned to Italy.

“If we were to do so at the European level … where would they go?” he said.

Under a deal struck in 2023, Tirana agreed that Rome could send up to 36,000 male migrants who have been stopped in international waters each year to two asylum-processing centers in northern Albania, where they will have their asylum claims fast-tracked and be deported if unsuccessful.

The deal — which follows an even harsher British scheme, which has since been scuppered, to send migrants permanently to Rwanda — has received a tentative endorsement from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said there are “lessons” to draw from it.

Fifteen other EU member countries have written to the Commission requesting it explores similar models, with the Netherlands this week reportedly investigating the possibility of sending rejected asylum-seekers to Uganda. Migration is widely expected to be the most pressing issue on the agenda of Thursday’s European Council summit in Brussels.

But while cracking down on undocumented migration was crucial to leaders, Mitsotakis said the bloc was also in dire need of more workers to backfill its aging workforce.

“If you want to build a big fence, you also need a big door,” Mitsotakis said. “Who is going to pick our olives? We are a continent that is shrinking, and we all recognize that in order to maintain our productivity, we will need labor, unskilled or skilled.”