Alternate Foreign Minister Nikos Xydakis told Greece’s radio station, Praktorio 104.9, that Greece and Germany should partner together to confront the problems caused by the refugee crisis. “Germany has saved and received people regardless of what some extreme circles inside the country say and Germany is Greece’s ally and partner, they have a relation,” said Xydakis.

He spoke in glowing terms of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who successfully overturned the stereotypes in a courageous way. “There is a significant part of the public opinion in Germany that supports her but extreme voices exist in her party too,” he said, adding that based on EU national law nothing different to what could be done has been done.

“What is lurking behind every aggressive statement is the easily explainable need of every member state to avoid whatever repercussion of that historic pressure that plagues the Mediterranean and the Middle-East. Not to take a single refugee,” he noted.

Besides, responding to those who link Greece’s management of the refugees with the economic crisis, Xydakis said that any country after six years of recession would find it challenging to deal with the infrastructure problems caused by the crisis. Pointing to the high tension within the EU, he said that “non-achievement and non-implementation of a common strategy and a common practice is the source of all the problems and the centrifugal tendencies that we are experiencing at the moment.”