PUBLIC financial assistance to “political refugees” constitutes a brutal provocation and should be scrapped, an opposition lawmaker said yesterday, as MPs proposed to replace cash with material assistance for refugees, people under subsidiary protection and asylum seekers.
The government “should realise that they cannot take €2.0 million a month from the pockets of the hardworking Cypriot taxpayers and give them as generous transfers to political refugees,” DISY deputy Lefteris Christoforou said. “Public assistance to political refugees constitutes a brutal provocation” and it should be scrapped right now.
Christoforou accused the government of being incapable and inefficient in implementing their migration policy, which has gone bankrupt.
Parliament’s Interior Affairs Committee yesterday discussed a law proposal drafted by DIKO MP Zaharias Koulias and signed by Christoforou, among others, to scrap financial assistance to refugees, people under subsidiary protection and asylum seekers.
Instead, these categories of people should be provided with shelter, food and clothing, the proposal said.
During the heated discussion, it became apparent that MPs were ignoring the differences between the categories of people covered by the public assistance legislation.
“Asylum seekers are one thing, recognised refugees are another and people under subsidiary protection yet another,” Labour Minister Sotiroulla Charalambous said.
The minister explained to MPs that based on the law on refugees and European Union directives, recognised political refugees and people under subsidiary protection have the same rights and obligations as Cypriot nationals who receive public assistance.
“There cannot be a law proposal regarding the rights and benefits of this category (of people) and treat them differently from Cypriot citizens,” the minister said.
The minister’s position was echoed by the state legal service.
Charalambous voiced hope that the confusion – “maybe done deliberately by some” – concerning the various categories would stop after the discussion before the committee.
Charalambous said the government was ready to discuss any matters, which did not violate human rights, EU laws and international treaties.
Charalambous stressed that her ministry was doing nothing more and nothing less than that decided by the previous administration and unanimously passed by parliament in 2006.
Committee chairman, AKEL MP Yiannos Lamaris defended the government, saying that until recently, Cyprus’ migration policy was deficient.
“In 2004 we had around 10,500 pending asylum applications, migration services were lacking and the asylum service did not exist,” Lamaris said.
To be able to cut benefits to asylum seekers and replace them with housing, food and clothing, Cyprus would need reception areas that can host around 1,000 people, Lamaris said.
None of the previous administrations saw to it to create such an infrastructure, the AKEL MP added.
The Kofinou reception centre, created in 2004, has a capacity for 80 people.
Two further venues being prepared now will be able to host between 200 and 250 people between them.
