THE European Commission’s vice-president Margaritis Schinas claimed today that Europe will always be an asylum destination for refugees.

Mr Schinas was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where billionaires and fossil fuel magnates began flying to on private jets on Monday to lobby government officials for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Schinas said he was very proud of the bloc’s activation of an emergency protection system for refugees when over six million Ukrainians began fleeing from Russia’s invasion.

This, he said, “testifies to the fact that Europe will always remain an asylum destination for those who flee war and persecution.”

“This is what defines us. This is the model of society we stand for. This is the European way of life.”

Meanwhile, 129 refugee deaths have been recorded in the central Mediterranean this year and 459 have gone missing.

The EU stopped operating dedicated refugee rescue ships in the region in 2019, leaving a small group of NGOs and activists to pick up where they left off.