Why Greece is not a Safe Host Country for Refugees

Abstract

This paper questions whether the Greek law and procedure for asylum seekers renders Greece an unsafe third country. In terms of the law and the practice, Greece seems to apply the accountability rather than the protection principle with respect to non-state actors, leaving asylum seekers vulnerable. UNHCR considers that Greece generally observes the principle of non-refoulement and that the fundamental deficit of the Greek system is focused on the failure to satisfy the ‘basic subsistence needs’ of refugees and asylum-seekers. It is argued here that the deficiencies of the Greek asylum system have to do with its ‘archaism’, its calculated ambivalence towards the legal situation of the victims of non-state agents, the lack of effective remedies and, last but not least, the absence of adequate social protection of refugees and asylum seekers.