Greek Opposition Uses Migrant Crisis to 'Undermine Syriza Before Elections'

Two Greek opposition parties are trying to exploit the migration crisis Greece is currently facing to undermine Syriza ahead of the snap parliamentary election, a Greek Foreign Ministry official told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Greek voters will go to polls on September 20 after Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had resigned last month and called a snap election to gain support for the controversial austerity reforms he had been forced to back in order to keep the country in the Eurozone.

"There are two parties that try to use this problem [refugee crisis] so as to fool the people, saying that the government of Syriza is responsible for it. The parties that play with this problem are the New Democracy and the Golden Dawn," Foreign Ministry Secretary General for International Economic Relations Giorgos Tsipras said.

He stressed that the two parties were trying to blame the Syriza government for the migration crisis, whereas in reality the problem had been created by the policies of previous governments.

"Of course the fact that we are not ready to deal with this huge refugee flow is not the current government, the government of Alexis Tsipras, but the low degree of readiness of the previous governments," Tsipras added.

Greece serves as a transit country for Middle Eastern and North African migrants and refugees fleeing their war-torn home countries in the hope of traveling further north in the European Union.

Athens will undertake to finance the creation of a coordinating center to manage the flow of refugees but hopes the European Union will refund the money spent, Tsipras said.

Last week the government of Caretaker Prime Minister Vassiliki Thanou said it would create a coordinating center, comprising ministries, police representatives, servicemen and coast guards, to process the tens of thousands of refugees arriving in Greece.

"In the first place it will be Greece, but in the long run it has to be fixed with the European Union, because it has to do with the whole problem of the refugee flow towards the EU. And I hope the money will be returned to Greece," Foreign Ministry’s Secretary General for International Economic Relations Giorgos Tsipras said.

He called the current situation in Greece a "humanitarian crisis" and expressed certainty that his country would overcome this issue "with the help of the international community."