"The ‘dilemmas’ of belonging to the European Union LAST week Interior Minister Christos Patsalides paid a visit to the Asylum Service. There is little doubt that immigration and asylum is one of the most pressing issues on his brief. Cyprus receives about 5,000 asylum claims a year, and has about 8,000 cases pending, a very high number for an island so small, and a huge challenge for a country that until recently was a source of emigration, not a host for immigration. The government barely misses an opportunity to point out that the problem has coincided with the partial lifting of restrictions across the Green Line. Indeed, the statistics speak for themselves, with the vast majority of asylum seekers coming first to Turkey, where many do not need visas, then to the occupied areas, and from there making the relatively easy hop into Cyprus and the European Union."
More:http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=34235&cat_id=1
