High ranking officials from Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta met in Nicosia to draft a common paper regarding the challenges they face in the area of migration and asylum that is expected to be adopted at ministerial level in Rome in January.
Addressing the meeting, host Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis said that EU Mediterranean countries are the ones that feel the strain of the great number of asylum seekers.
He said that the four countries seek solidarity and burden sharing on behalf of the other EU member states as well as for the resettlement of refugees.
Cyprus, he added, cannot control its external frontiers on its north and northeast coasts because of Turkish occupation.
Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Italy will also ask for a more effective action on behalf of the EU agency, FRONTEX, tasked to coordinate the operational cooperation between member states in the field of border security.