Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will go first. Today, we will limit contributions to three minutes per person because of the time constraints. I will try to keep mine to that.

I wish to raise two subjects, namely, Greece and Macedonia. Regarding Greece, many believe that the four-month programme agreed in February is starting to unwind. My understanding is that, of the emergency liquidity assistance, ELA, of €2 billion that was requested, €500 million was given and has more or less been spent and Athens is just a few days away from running out of money. The finance Minister, speaking in today's press, stated, "I can only say that we have money to pay salaries and pensions of public employees. For the rest we will see." The situation seems to be worsening and the language appears to be heating up. For example, Mr. Jeroen Dijsselbloem appeared to reject the reform proposals in Brussels yesterday. He stated, "We have to stop wasting time and really start talks seriously."

That is one side of the argument. On the other side in Greece, the defence Minister, Mr. Panos Kammenos, spoke about the possibility of Europe forcing Greece, which we have said we will not do.

He stated:

If Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with migrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that wave of millions of economic migrants there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State too ... If they strike us, we will strike them.