Greek Migration Policy in the 2010s: Europeanization Tensions at a Time of Crisis

Abstract

During the past two years Greek migration policy has seen important developments concerning the legislative framework for irregular migration/asylum management and migrant integration. Given that several among these developments are related to the transposition of related EU directives, one obvious answer might be that of Europeanization: these developments had less to do with the Greek government’s plans about migration, rather they were the direct impact of Europeanization; Greece simply transposed relevant EU directives. I am arguing here for a more careful reading of the Europeanization effect which not only distinguishes the differential impact of Europeanization on policies and discourses, but also actually shows how Europeanization tendencies at different level can contrast one another. The findings of this paper contribute to a better understanding of Europeanization processes. They highlight that Europeanization involves also resistance to Europe especially at times of crisis.

Key Words:

• Europeanization
• migration
• citizenship
• Greece
• reform
• political parties

Notes

1. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-11072012-AP/EN/3-11072012-AP-EN.PDF last accessed on 30 January 2013.

2. Concomitantly to this change, law 4018/2011 facilitated the acquisition of the long-term EU resident status (which had become a stepping-stone to naturalization). It reduced the application fee from €900 to €600 and made it easier for applicants to prove their knowledge of Greek by sitting a test (law 3789/2010).

3. Data provided by the Secretariat for Population and Social Cohesion, Ministry of Interior, 15 November 2011.

4. Although law 3907/2011 has been voted two years ago, its implementation proceeds with hiccups. The new asylum offices do not yet exist (Pro Asyl 2012), while new reception centres are slowly being constructed. Programmes of assisted voluntary return have been beefed up with the help of the local branch of IOM involving now approximately 12,000 people, while written statements of postponed return have been issued to approx. 1600 people in the period 2011–2012 (data provided by the Ministry for the Protection of the Citizen, 30 May 2012). Discussing fully these important implementation issues, however, goes beyond the scope of this paper.

5. Several member states stopped implementing Dublin II and returning asylum seekers to Greece since 2008: Finland stopped returning asylum seekers to Greece on 18 April 2008, shortly after Norway, the UK in September 2010, Sweden in November of the same year and Germany in January 2011.