Nine GUE/NGL MEPs will visit the island of Lesvos this Friday and Saturday on the initiative of SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance

SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance MEPs, Kostas Arvanitis and Petros Kokkalis, will participate in the GUE/NGL MEPs mission at the island of Lesvos, where an unprecedented and shameful, for both Greece and Europe, humanitarian crisis continues to unfold

SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance will continue to raise awareness on the issue, to inform the European Public Opinion by all appropriate means, and demand that the European Institutions provide functional, humane solutions, which serve the best interests of Greece- in the direction of decongesting the country and strengthening European solidarity

Nine GUE/NGL MEPs will visit Lesvos on Friday and Saturday. The GUE/NGL mission is organized on the initiative of the SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance group, following a public invitation addressed by GUE/NGL MEP, Mr. Kostas Arvanitis, during his recent presence in Lesvos, as a member of a SYRIZA mission to the island, two days after the fire.

SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance MEPs, Kostas Arvanitis and Petros Kokkalis, will participate in the GUE/NGL MEPs mission at the island of Lesvos, where an unprecedented and shameful, for both Greece and Europe, humanitarian crisis continues to unfold. At present more than 10.000 people are living in the streets and sleeping in cemeteries, ditches and fields, while the number of COVID-19 cases remains unclear. Those scenes do not reach the Greek or European public opinion. This silence, however, does not stop the Left’s efforts to raise awareness and inform European public opinion on the issue.

The aim of the visit of the nine GUE/NGL MEPs, who will be in Moria at the 18th and 19th of September, is to convey to the European Parliament and to the European Member States the despair, the rage, and the pain of refugees and immigrants, as well as the locals, who are victims of European policies, which have turned the remote islands of Greece into de facto prisons and repositories of souls. The European Union should take responsibility for its policies’ results.

During the visit, meetings will take place with the Regional Administration, representatives of Local Government, local civil society bodies, residents, representatives of humanitarian organizations and intergovernmental organizations and of course with the homeless refugees themselves - the people whom the Representative of the European Leadership, Mr. Margaritis Schinas, chose to see only from above, from the safety of his helicopter.

SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance will continue to raise awareness on the issue, to inform the European Public Opinion by all appropriate means, and demand that the European Institutions provide functional, humane solutions, which serve the best interests of Greece- in the direction of decongesting the country and strengthening European solidarity.

The GUE/NGL delegation that will visit Lesvos consists of the following MEPs:

Kostas Arvanitis (SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance)

Petros Kokkalis (SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance)

Miguel Urban Crespo (ANTICAPITALISTAS, Spain)

Idoia Villanueva Ruiz (PODEMOS, Spain)

Sira Rego (Izquierda Unida, Spain)

Pernando Barrena Arza (EH BILDU, Spain)

Malin Bjork (Vänsterpartiet, Sweden)

Cornelia Ernst (DIE LINKE, Germany)

Marisa Matias (Bloco de Esquerda, Portugal)