“It’s not the time for exits, it’s time to join our forces to address global and regional challenges in order to tackle the refugee, economic and security crisis,” said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in joint press conference with President of the European Council Donald Tusk after their meeting on Tuesday morning.

“Regarding the management of refugee flows we underlined that this is an international and European challenge and a joint European approach is needed with respect to international law, solidarity and fair burden sharing” he said.

“We stressed the importance to intensify efforts to deal with Syrian issue and global terrorism. We also agreed that it is necessary to put forward all the decisions taken and concern each stage of refugee flows, reducing flows from Turkey and establishing a relocation process from Turkey to Europe,” Mr. Tsipras said.

Mr. Tusk clarified that “the alleged exclusion of Greece from Schengen area is not a solution. It does not solve any problem. It does not put an end to the war in Syria”.

Referring to the Greek program’s review, he said that “after the discussion I had with Mr. Tsipras I am more optimistic about the review process”.