Immigrant welfare in Greece: portrait of a town

Abstract

This paper examines majority-immigrant relations through the prism of welfare provision to glean insight into the extent to which the welfare system influences the integration of immigrants into Greek society. Does welfare provision help lead to social cohesion between the majority society and immigrant minorities? Are existing majority-immigrant tensions abated, or exacerbated, by the welfare system? What is the role of welfare provision in relation to other integration factors such as labour market participation, naturalization and broadening conceptions of host society identity? These questions are addressed through in-depth qualitative research conducted in a Greek town. The research indicates that immigrant integration is largely influenced by local level policies and by immigrants’ daily encounters with people who carry these out.

Keywords:

• welfare
• immigration
• integration
• local policy
• diversity

Notes

1. This paper draws on research conducted by the author in Thiva in the context of the European Commission FP7-funded project on Welfare and Values in Europe: transitions related to religion, minorities and gender (WaVE) (2006–2009). Research on welfare, religion and immigration in Thiva has been conducted by the author through three further research projects, insights from which also inform the contents of this paper: the Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective (WREP) project based in Uppsala, Sweden and funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation; the London School of Economics Hellenic Observatory Laskaridis Fellowship on immigrant integration and national identity in Greece; and the project on ‘Exploring the Religious Attitudes and Beliefs of Greek Orthodox Clerics and Lay People As A Predictor of Their Service to the Poor’, funded by the Templeton Foundation. The author’s thanks are due to each of these funding bodies, as well as to Nikos Kokosalakis, Grace Davie and Lina Molokotos-Liederman, with whom I had the pleasure to work in the WREP and WaVE projects, and to the anonymous reviewers of this article for their helpful comments.

2. One notable exception is Maratou-Alipranti and Gazon (2005).

3. Fakiolas (2004), Cavounidis (2006), Baldwin-Edwards (2004a, 2004b), Glytsos (1995), Iosifidis (1997), Lianos, Sarris and Katseli (1996), Markova and Sarris (1997), Dimoulas, Papadopoulou, and Boukouvalas 2005, Kapsalis (2005), Maratou-Alipranti (1999), and Chletsos (1996) all engage with this notion, some from a critical standpoint.

4. In March 2010, the Greek government voted in law No. 3838/2010 on citizenship and naturalization, whereby second generation migrants (children born in Greece of foreign parents or children born abroad to foreign parents, but who have completed at least six years of schooling in Greece and who reside in Greece) can naturalize with a declaration made by their parents either at the second generation migrants’ birth or with the latters’ completion of the sixth year of Greek education. The law also lowers the requirement for naturalization from ten to seven years’ residence in Greece (provided the migrant has achieved EU long-term resident status, which requires 5 years’ legal residence), and allows local political rights for foreign residents of five or more years (Gropas and Triandafyllidou 2012, 52). The constitutionality of this law was challenged in February 2011 in the 4th Chamber of the Greek State Council, since which point the status of the legislation is in flux.

5. Otherwise known as the ‘Asia Minor Catastrophe’, the failed Greek campaign to recover predominately Greek territories of the Ottoman Empire (in Asia Minor, Western coast of contemporary Turkey) resulted in the Lausanne Treaty, which foresaw a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The Greek refugees from Asia Minor were settled in various parts of Greece, and such ‘old refugee’ neighbourhoods as that in Thiva are scattered throughout Greece. The Lausanne Treaty also set special terms under which a minority of Greeks could continue living in Constantinople, and a minority of Turks could continue living in a region of Greece called Thrace.

The Greek refugees from Asia Minor were settled in various parts of Greece, and such ‘old refugee’ neighbourhoods as that in Thiva are scattered throughout Greece. The Lausanne Treaty setting out the population exchange also set special terms under which a minority of Greeks could continue living in Istanbul and a minority of Turks in the Greek region of Thrace.

6. In accordance with immigration law 1975/1991, ‘Northern Epirots’ are ‘co-ethnics’. The law does not set out the criteria for definition as ‘co-ethnic’; a decision of the State Council (No. 2756/1983) defines the term as ‘to belong to the Greek Ethnos’. A further State Council judgement (No. 2207/1992) sets out that ‘co-ethnics from Albania are the people that descend from Greek parents and their place of birth (theirs or their parents) is Vorios Epirus’. See Triandafyllidou and Veikou (2002, 198). Pontic Greeks, returnees from the former Soviet Republics, are also designated as ‘co-ethnics’; a ‘specific naturalisation’ procedure was implemented for this group and most naturalized upon or soon after their arrival in Greece. Ethnic Greek Albanians were given Special Identity Cards for Co-Ethnics (EDTO cards) which, once they had secured 10 years’ residence in Greece, allowed them fairly easy access to Greek citizenship; in 2006, for this particular group, the naturalization fee was waived and the discretionary character of the decision removed, so that in 2007, the number of ethnic Greek Albanians who naturalized was nearly 100% more than any previous year. See Gropas and Triandafyllidou (2012, 50–1).

7. The Viotia Prefecture Welfare Office is based in Livadeia, approximately 40 km from Thiva.

8. The ‘Help at Home’ programme is a Greek Ministry of Health and Welfare initiative now operating at the municipal level across the country, funded 75% by the EU funds and 25% national funding. At the time of research the programme’s future in Thiva was tentative as the required national funding was not yet secured.

9. Such associations exist in several parishes, but the largest (of approximately 100 members) is in Thiva. These women generally serve in diocesan ‘soup kitchens’, clean and decorate churches, and help to organize and run local religious festivals. The ‘Women’s Association of Love’ has its own statutory charter.

10. The article includes quotations from several interviewees. These are all anonymous but also, because many of the organizations and associations included in the study employ very few people who would thus be easily identifiable with reference to their employment, the interviews are accompanied only with very basic descriptions identifying interviewees as immigrants or civil servants, etc.

11. The chronology of immigration policy is a large topic beyond the scope of this paper. See Fakiolas (2003a, 2003b).

12. The lack of resources is quite significant considering the legislation requires that a percentage of the state income from residence permits renewals be allocated for the needs of the local Office of Foreigners. In the case of Thiva, according to my interviewees the amount spent on the office for the 2006–2007 period of research should have been approximately €70,000 but only a fraction of this amount is used for this purpose.

13. In fact, such limitations and constraints shapes ‘street-level bureaucrats’ administering of most Greek policies, so that many of the complaints of immigrants in relation to civil servants are expressed also by the majority population regarding their experiences in other policy areas.

14. This is a trend also noted in research in other parts of Greece (see Hatziprokopiou 2003). In my study of the local print media over a three month period, I was unable to find any such adverts; but it is likely such adverts would have appeared in print ten years ago.

15. Of course, Albanians are an exceptional group in forming such a large percentage of the total immigrant population and in being the first large group to arrive in Thiva (and Greece in general).

16. On this point in relation to further research in the Greek context, see Kiprianos, Balias and Passas (2003).