Sylikiotis seeks to calm the storm as Labour Minister scorned by deputies for seeking €30m to cover asylum needs
THE government yesterday sought to play down the immigrant situation as negative public sentiment and hysteria increases over their numbers and the cash needed to support them.
As Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis tried to reassure the public at a news conference yesterday, Labour Minister Sotiroula Charalambous was at parliament asking for €30 million to cover the cost of facilities and benefits for asylum seekers for next year.
Charalambous said that out of a total €219 million given out in benefits in 2009, €15.6 million, or some 7.0 per cent went to asylum seekers and those who have been granted the status of political refugee. Part of the €30 million will go to building a new reception centre at Menoyia, near the existing centre at Kofinou.
Deputies poured scorn on the labour minister yesterday, saying the state was claiming it could not raise €10 million to help the families of bankrupt Eurocypria, but was making Cyprus into an attractive tourist destination for migrants.
Figures obtained by the Cyprus Mail yesterday showed that an ‘unprocessed’ asylum seeker with a wife and two children is entitled to over €1,000 a month in benefits, plus additional cash for winter heating, and Christmas and Easter benefits totalling another €600. The benefits are given until an asylum seeker’s status is determined by the authorities. After that, if they are not rejected and deported, they are put under the same benefits system as Cypriots.
The migrant issue has been fraught since underlying tensions came to a head last Friday night during violent clashes on the Larnaca seafront between anti-immigration and nationalist protesters, and people attending an anti-racist festival that saw numerous people injured, including a Turkish Cypriot man who was stabbed.
Though widely condemned, the incident also prompted widespread criticism against the government, which stands accused of lacking a proper immigration policy.
Sylikiotis rubbished the charges yesterday.
“For the first time, Cyprus has acquired a comprehensive and structured immigration policy in the past two and half years,” he told reporters, challenging anyone to deny this.
The minister did not go into why such policy was non-existent in the past but wondered why there was no such reaction “when we had 13,000 asylum seekers in 2006.”
“Because the overwhelming majority of these people worked…they served the needs of the economy … when there was growth and they did not need benefits,” he added.
He said the Republic owed foreign workers a lot.
“I do not think there is anyone who will dispute that immigrants contributed greatly to the economic growth of the country in recent years and we owe them a lot.”
The minister said not only was the immigrant situation now under control, but it has drastically improved compared to past years.
“The influx of illegal immigrants from the [Turkish] occupied areas has decreased a lot, as has the number of asylum seekers and residence permits. The number of legal immigrants from third countries is also down,” the minister said.
In 2008, around 2,500 asylum seekers crossed from the north to the government-controlled areas compared to some 1,500 last year and 700 so far in 2010.
Pending asylum applications today are down to 995 while at the end of 2007 they had reached 8,567.
Pending appeals – regarding rejected applications — before the Reviewing Authority have dropped by a 1,000 to 2,506 this year compared to 2009.
“Put perhaps most important is the fact that the number of new asylum applications is down,” Sylikiotis said.
New applications to date reached 1,787, down significantly from around 6,000 in 2007.
At present, there are some 2,700 cases of recognised refugees and subsidiary protection beneficiaries – the breakdown was not immediately available.
The overwhelming majority of these people are Palestinians from Iraq and the Gaza Strip.
Their number is included in the approximately 66,000 legal third-country immigrants in Cyprus — 50 per cent of whom are household workers.
The estimated number of illegal third-country immigrants is 34,000, according to government figures.
A further 97,645 are EU nationals living and working in Cyprus but this just includes those who are registered.
Sylikiotis said there could be several more thousands of EU nationals who do not register as they ought to after three months of residence.
