Migration In Greece Research Articles

Changes in Greek Attitudes and Policies Towards Refugee Reception Between 2020 and 2024

The study examines changes in policies and attitudes related to refugee reception and survival migration in Greece between 2020 and 2024. We analysed the changes in migration policy in Greece during the 2020-2021 pandemic, the situation in refugee camps and the government’s response measures. Putting the information together, we can see that Greece has been handling refugees and migrants in accordance with international and EU standards. Greece is constantly improving conditions in refugee camps and improving life security. By understanding the situation of Greece’s reception of refugees from war-torn countries in the Middle East from 2023 to 2024, we can also understand that Greece has linked its policy on refugee immigration with its national conditions, striving for mutual benefit, and providing assistance to displaced refugees as much as possible. The study sorted out and analysed the refugee migration policies and government measures in Greece from 2019 to 2024, and more directly compared the changes in Greek policies and laws under different challenges. At the same time, we also analyse the impact of these changes from a sociological perspective.

From Fortress Europe to Border-Filter: Vulnerability, Biopolitics, and the Management of Migration in Greece and the European Union after 2015

Abstract: Following increased migration flows in 2015, the European Commission (EC) and the Greek government implemented new strategies and legislation to regulate mobility in the EU area. The impact of one of these strategies is especially important. The EC "European Agenda on Migration" was implemented by Greek Asylum Law 4375/2016 and followed up with subsequent legislation. The legislation introduced "vulnerability assessment" as a tool for granting or withholding refugee status based on biopolitical criteria. The border can be seen as a filter that admits, on biopolitical grounds, those supposedly deserving of entry while it excludes those deemed undeserving. The border-filter differs from the perception of Fortress Europe that is popular in activist and other political discourses in much of Europe. The idea of Fortress Europe implies a total absence of migrant mobility and does not correspond to our empirical research findings.

The Absence of a Rationalized Migration Data Policy in Greece and the Discontinuity of Greek Migration Policy: A Glance at the First Results of the PreMiGro Project

The aim of this paper is to present the first findings of a funded project (PreMiGro) that concerns the development of a start-up pilot prediction model of short and long-term migration flows in Greece using machine-learning tools. During the first phase of the project, which focused on the examination of data regarding historical number of immigrants to Greece associated with country of origin and its political status for the period 1990-2022 through a range of primary and secondary sources, a vital finding surfaced. The discontinuity of the Greek migration policy seems to be related, among others, to the absence of a consistent data policy on migration, ever since Greece became a host country of migrants in the 1990s up to 2022 when Greece had already witnessed major transformations in its migration policy domain. A first reading of PreMiGro’s initial research outcomes sheds some light on the peculiarity of the Greek migration policy. Indeed, the securitization of migration in Greece, the (at times negative) perception of migrants and refugees from parts of the Greek Society and Public Sphere and the fragmented Greek migration policy per se, could be explained through the lens of the absence of a rationalized migration data policy in Greece, among other things.

Desecuritizing migration in Greece: Contesting securitization through “flexicuritization”

AbstractDespite emerging securitization patterns all over Europe and although desecuritization has occasionally been suggested as a possible alternative to security discourses, it has remained, however, severely underexplored. Implications pertaining to the polarization of the security‐migration nexus are traceable both in the host state as well as in the overall life quality of migrants and refugees. As far as Greece is concerned, the migration‐related security discourse has penetrated all layers of the social and political fabric with serious consequences both for those that remain in the country as well as for the political imprint of Greece. Yet, despite limited conceptual attempts to explore the desecuritization of migration dynamics in Greece, there remains a huge research gap. The aim of this paper was to present a desecuritization framework for Greece, through the management and supervision of migratory flows. Drawing insights from conceptual understandings, a pragmatic, utilitarian, flexible and positive form of desecuritization is proposed, called "flexicuritization", which constitutes a feasible and implementable solution in the Greek case. It is argued that desecuritization presupposes a pragmatic view of security leading policymakers to the management of migration through monitoring and supervision. At a theoretical and synthetic level, this strategy will include elements from the three theoretical schools of realism, liberalism and constructivism. The purpose of this flexible strategy is to become a precursor to integration under conditions that are consistent and in the spirit of the flows and the number of migrants / refugees currently in Greece. A case study method will be used, based on Paul Roe's (2004) desecuritization strategy for ethnic minorities in the Greek migration context.

The temporariness of Bangladeshi migration in Greece

Bangladeshi overseas workers migrating to the West, who once aimed to establish long-term prospects, have beenincreasingly relying on temporary migration since the mid-2000s, as a result of changes in the migration policies andeconomic conditions of destination countries and corresponding shifts in migrant strategies. This paper examines the“temporariness” of low-skilled Bangladeshi migrant workers in Greece, by comparing the experiences of those who arrived in the 1990s and were issued resident permits with those who arrived in the mid-2000s with the support of the former immigrants, but who have not been able to secure any kind of visa. Members of the first generation have been forced to shorten their long-term stays and shift to temporary migration, while members of the second generation have had to suspend their lives in a state of extended temporariness. Despite these challenges, the enduring positive image of overseas migration in villages in Bangladesh allows migrants to maintain their motivation and they therefore continue to promote the migration culture.

Securitization of Migration Perceptions of Police and Market Actors in Greece: A Comparative Study in the Islands of Crete and Lesvos

Migration is a multifaceted issue with a variety of research implications. In the case of Greece, the migration / refugee crisis of 2015 has been the subject of security centered policies since its beginning. Migration practices in Greece in conjunction with official statements (speech acts) from political and generally security actors, such as the police, suggest that migration in Greece has been securitized. The Greek police are a significant security actor that conveys important security messages and exerts significant influence on the public, since their role lies in the maintaining of public order. Yet, their role in the securitization of migration in Greece has been largely unexplored. Market actors are also an important driving force in attitude shaping at the labor market. Thus, the aim of this paper is twofold. First to explore and illustrate the perceptions and attitudes of the Greek police pertaining to migration and its relation to security and second to investigate whether these perceptions do exert influence on Greek market actors in the respective research areas (Crete and Lesvos), thus impeding the migrants’/refugees’ integration in the labor market of Greece. In order to do so, a mixed methodology is used, applying both quantitative (structured interviews with police officers) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs) methods, so as to investigate whether police officers’ stances reinforce market actors’ perceptions on refugees with an emphasis on the economic sector of security as referred to by the Copenhagen School. The research was carried out in the Greek islands of Crete and Lesvos. These diverse geographical areas were chosen due to their different socio-economic conditions as well as due to their different migrant/refugee flows, hence providing fertile ground for optimal research outcomes.

Silencing inconvenient memories: refugees from Asia Minor in Greek historiography

ABSTRACT This paper explores the link between memory and history ‘from below’ as well as the (non-) use of histories of past migration in Greece. It analyses how the memory of the 1920s Asia Minor refugees was guarded by Greek state over the course of time. It explores how state agents (historiography, education system, commemorations, etc.) acted as guardians of collective memory ‘from above’, presenting a rosy past that ignored the experiences of these refugees in Greece. It also examines how this process of constructing historical memory ‘from above’ (re)produced national belonging through homogeneity, without taking notice of refugees’ diversities or problems faced during their settlement in the social, cultural or economic space of Greece. The paper adopts a critical approach to the cultural and social spaces in which refugee memory was selectively constructed as the only past that has to be remembered, stored and recalled, and aims to rescue from oblivion memories that were condemned to silence in the contemporary national narrative. These silenced memories could help us to write a history ‘from below’ and find analogies with the experiences of contemporary refugee flows as well as to combat ever-present xenophobia, prejudice and racism in the present society.

Measures against Illegal Migration in Greece

Measures against Illegal Migration in Greece

Interregional student migration in Greece: patterns and determinants

Cet article propose d’étudier les caractéristiques et les déterminants des migrations des étudiants en Grèce, en prenant en considération les attributs individuels des étudiants et les spécificités des territoires d’origine et de destination. En Grèce, où l’entrée à l’enseignement supérieur se fait via un système national d’examens, le choix des études s’avère une étape importante pour la vie d’un jeune mais aussi pour sa famille, tant sur le plan affectif que sur le plan budgétaire. En s’appuyant sur une base de données originale, nous construisons un modèle qui étudie les vecteurs spatiaux origine-destination des étudiants et leurs déterminants. Les résultats montrent le poids des deux grandes aires métropolitaines, Athènes et Thessalonique, mais aussi le rôle primordial de la distance dans les choix de localisation et de mobilité des étudiants. La crise économique a limité et rationalisé ces migrations. Classification JEL : R23, R25, J24, I23, I25

Securitizing Migration in the European Union: Greece and the Evros Fence

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the securitization of migration in Greece through the case of the Evros anti-immigrant fence. The fence was constructed in 2012 with the aim to limit the flow of irregular migration from Turkey to Greece. This paper explores the reasons why the Greek government decided to build the fence and its political implications by focusing on the securitization of migration in Greece both through practices and through securitizing rhetoric. The paper argues that the construction of the Evros fence is closely associated with changing perceptions of threat and the framing of migrants as risky and threatening both at the national and the EU levels.

Admissions of racism in discourse on migration in Greece: Beyond the norm against prejudice?

AbstractThe turn to language in social psychology is closely related to the study of prejudice as racist discourse has been the subject matter of some of the ground‐breaking discourse analytic work. A widely accepted argument was that there seems to be a norm against prejudice informing Western societies: people commonly engage in denials of prejudice when they make negative comments about minorities. Recent work has argued that, due to ideological shifts in the wider societal context or because denying prejudice may not be people's only rhetorical concern, it is possible to find people admitting prejudice. We examine how people in Greece, Greek majority and immigrants, formulate admissions of racism in interviews on migration and citizenship in Greece. Drawing on Ideological Dilemmas and Critical Discursive Social Psychology, we argue that these admissions ironically operate within the norm against prejudice and discuss our findings in relation to the wider socio‐political Greek context.

Immigration Law and the Politics of Migration in Greece

There remains a void between the legal framework of immigration in Greece and its implementation. The essay explores this theme, first by providing an overview of Greek legislative acts and immigration laws from 1991 to 2015. This discussion is then placed within the Greek political arena by focusing on three political parties in Greece that have espoused anti-immigrant rhetoric. The essay concludes with suggestions of ways in which reconciliation can occur between Greek immigration law and the political environment.

Albanian Migration in Greece: Understanding Irregularity in a Time of Crisis

The third decade of Albanian migration to Greece signalled a historical change in the human geography of Greece’s largest migrant group. The impact of the economic recession and the visa-free regime for Albanians entering the European Union shaped a new fluid reality for Albanian irregular migration. This paper explores the impact of the socio-economic transformation processes on the migrants’ legal status vis-à-vis irregular status and integration dynamics. The emerging mobility strategies are conceptualized as a migrants’ agency that overcome socio-economic barriers or policy restrictions and navigate them. This paper goes beyond the legality-irregularity dichotomy, suggesting it is the multidimensional ‘in-between’ space of semi-irregular status where apparently ‘irregular’ Albanians interact with various forms of agency. Our aim is to explore how the irregular/legal nexus developed within the Balkan in the specific context of Greece. The empirical analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 94 Albanians and 13 stakeholders in Greece and Albania.

The Problem of Complexity in the Modern Migration: «Power in Networks» or «Power of Networks»

This article aims at the modern immigration problems through the concept of complexity. The paper includes the case study of social network analysis of illegal migration in Greece made and visualized in UCINET program v. 6.205 (Net-draw v. 2.097). The specific character of modern immigration reflects the number of problems and features of the modern world as well as political processes. Due to this the article touches upon crucial questions such as what is a place and role of a state in conditions of Instability and nonlinearity on supranational and domestic levels; are the mechanisms of political system able to maintain homeostatic balance and what is the role of the rapid and widespread network types of relations and structures; and others.

Balkan Roma immigrants in Greece: An initial approach to the traits of a migration flow.

<p><strong> </strong></p><p>In this paper we examine aspects of Balkan Roma migration toGreece, which started in early 90s. Different Roma groups have been settled inGreecesince then or are continuing to engage in seasonal work in the country. The initial findings of our ongoing field research are presented in this paper. At present are no other independent studies dealing directly with the profile of Balkan Roma immigration inGreece. The aim of this paper is to identify the integration features of the various Roma groups residing inGreece. The findings in our research support the notion that there exist a strong relation between the degree of previous social integration of the Roma in their country of origin and the one inGreece. The location they select to settle, the type of settlement they create and the types of employment they undertake inGreeceare detrimental to their integration in the host society. Additionally, the existence, prior to their settlement in the country, of social or family ties in the host country, as well as the presence of other type of social networks are conducive to their integration. Roma groups, who migrated toGreece, on the contrary of the common belief, have utilized and were assisted by the regularization programmes for irregular immigrants. Findings are also indicate that some of the most integrated sedentary Roma groups have undergone an “invisibility” process, which has resulted in them being perceived as non-Roma in the host country. What has been observed is that Roma groups adapted to state policies and administrative practices inGreece. Some of the better integrated groups were favored by the legislative immigration framework as it was implemented in a non-austere and easy to be infringed manner. </p><p> </p>

Regards sur les migrants de longue distance en Grèce

La décision de la Grèce de construire une clôture à sa frontière orientale a fait la une sur Internet et dans les journaux, mais la matérialisation de la frontière par la construction d'une clôture n'est, en Grèce comme ailleurs, qu'un élément d'un système et d'un dispositif frontalier (Bigo et al., 2009). Cet article est le fruit de sept semaines d'enquêtes passées le long de la frontière gréco-turque, afin de comprendre les dynamiques frontalières là où, selon les statistiques, l’on compte le plus grand afflux de migrants dits illégaux vers l'Europe. Les observations sur le terrain nous permettent de dire que la clôture, qui a été achevée en décembre 2012, ne peut être considérée que dans la totalité du dispositif frontalier, non linéaire, mis en place par la Grèce et par l'Union Européenne pour empêcher les migrants de pénétrer dans la forteresse européenne. Ce sont également ces autres barrières, indirectement visibles car souvent non-matérielles, que nous essayons d'analyser.

Challenges to Desecuritizing Migration in Greece

The initial response in Greece to the unexpected emergence of mass migration to that country in the 1990s was one that framed the issue of migration as a threat to both Greek culture and individuals' personal security—as existential dangers from which both the Greek state and society needed protection. We argue that this initial period of securitization—and its corresponding discourse of criminality, policing and danger—was succeeded by elite attempts to ‘desecuritize’ migration and reframe the issue in terms of social inclusion and integration, at least with respect to legal migrants. Public opinion, however, has recently moved in a more anti-migrant direction—particularly in the context of severe economic crisis—raising questions about the ability of political elites to desecuritize an issue once previous securitizing attempts have succeeded.

Qui Bono?

It has become commonplace to argue that migration in most host states is socially constructed primarily as a security threat, a process known as ‘securitisation’. Political elites and security professionals are identified as the main agents that promote this particular framing of the issue. While securitisation is often implicitly considered as a goal-orientated process, paradoxically few studies have explored its actual consequences on policy and the securitising actors themselves. Adopting a consequentialist ethics approach, this article assesses the implications of the securitisation of migration in Greece, drawing on face-to-face interviews with security professionals, discourse analysis and other primary data. It demonstrates that securitisation harms the interests not only of migrants but also, counter-intuitively, of the state and the elites that supported it in the first place. This leaves only parties of the far right as the main winners of the security frame that has characterised Greece's stance on immigration since the early 1990s, and that continues to pose obstacles to its development of a coherent immigration policy with a long-term view.

Gender and Migration in Greece: The Position and Status of Albanian Women in Patras

Greece has experienced major changes in its migration patterns.After a century or so of emigration, it has now become a country of immigration. Much academic research has concentrated on the impact this change has on Greek society. However, there is a tendency to ignore the role that gender plays in the migration process. This article addresses the issue of Albanian immigration to Greece, focusing on the aspect of gender. It presents the living and working conditions of Albanian women who migrate to Greece, especially to one of its cities, Patras. It examines the new migration process through the eyes of women migrants. It is centred on their narration about their journey to Greece, their decision to migrate, the problems that they face, their experiences and plans for the future: in short, their life stories. Finally, the article draws attention to the need for further research on issues concerning migrant women in Greece.

Securitization of Migration in Greece: Process, Motives, and Implications

The field of security is largely controlled by elites who, by virtue of their authority, are able to create an image of an enemy which is largely independent of the objective significance of a threat. However, a narrow focus on speech acts and discourse analysis to study such processes of securitization is inherently inadequate. This article provides a panoramic account of Greek migration politics during the 1990s. It shows that securitization can be discursive or nondiscursive, pre-mediated or subconscious, and beneficial or detrimental for securitizing actors. Elite interviews and an in-depth analysis of contextual factors help make sense of these dynamics.