Mediterranean EU member states, like Cyprus, require the display of practical support on behalf of the EU, in order to address immigration issues, MEP Eleni Theocharous said on Friday, adding that the presence of FRONTEX in the area is imperative.

Theocharous was speaking at a seminar, titled “The New Mediterranean Reality of Europe: Immigration and Asylum in Malta, Greece and Cyprus”, organized in Malta upon the initiative of the European Parliament Offices in Cyprus, Greece and Malta.

The Cypriot MEP said that the problem was extremely serious in Cyprus, since in addition to the illegal migration flows and the thousands of asylum seekers, the country is facing the problem of the Turkish occupation and the systematic transfer of settlers by Turkey to the occupied areas of Cyprus.

At the seminar, the Coordinator of the Asylum Service of the Ministry of Interior of Cyprus Sotos Ktoris referred to the need to create a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) by 2012, in order to address the serious immigration problem that Mediterranean member states face.