Ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union As “Privileged Return Migrants”
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ESPACE, POPULATIONS, SOCIETES, 2004-3 pp. 533-544 Eftihia VOUTIRA Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies University of Macedonia Egnatia 156 Thessaloniki 54006 Grèce [email protected] Ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union as “Privileged Return Migrants” INTRODUCTION The presence of migrants in contemporary historical diaspora in former Eastern Europe Greece is ubiquitous. Since the early 1990’s, and by implication allocate a privileged sta- Greece, like other Southern European coun- tus to their co-ethnic returnees. State immi- tries, has turned from an emigration to an gration policies in these states are grounded immigration country [King et al., 2000]. in jus sanguinis that defines membership in The aim of this paper is to offer an analysis terms of ethnic descent [De Tinguy, 2003, of the emerging policy framework within pp.113-114]. which the ethnic Greeks from the former The approach in this paper is anthropolo- Soviet Union (FSU), are singled out and gical; it addresses the dialectic between the allocated a privileged status when compared Greek co-ethnic ‘returnees’ and host expec- with other newcomer groups, e.g. other tations, on both state and societal levels, as migrants and refugees. It argues that Greece articulated in the language used by the state does not have an immigration policy in (e.g. state officials, legislative acts), the host place and that for the past 15 years ethnic population and the migrants themselves. It return migration of Greeks from the Former also focuses on issues of ‘labelling’ as part Soviet Union (a total of 155,000 settled of the negotiation process between newcom- repatriates according to the 2000 official ers and hosts. For example, focusing on the state census data, MM-T, p.41) has func- post-1989 arrivals from the former Soviet tioned as a migration policy in disguise. In Union (FSU), there is ample ethnographic this respect Greece is not unique. The par- evidence of the newcomers’ preference for ticular type of policy favouritism vis-à-vis being called, and using as a term of self- former East European citizen of co-ethnic ascription, ‘refugees’ (prosphyges) rather descent is also observable in other European than ‘repatriates’ (palinnostoundes) or countries (e.g. Finland, Germany, Poland). ‘returnees’ (epanapatrizomenoi), as various These states acknowledge the presence of a Greek state actors have labelled them 534 Table 1. Arrivals of ethnic Greeks from the former Soviet Union in Greece by year and type of visa It is evident from the above table that the basic change in the migration strategies of the newcomers in Greece since 1977 is the progressive increase of the ‘tourist visa’ as an entry point to Greece. For instance, in 1993 those enter- ing the country on a ‘repatriation visa’ totalized 16,684 (64%) while those entering on a ‘tourist’ visa were 9,040 (35%) of the total of 25,720. By 1999 these patterns has been transformed: only 531 (11%) arrived on ‘repatriation visas’, while 4,140 (88,5%) of migrants arrived on a ‘tourist visa’, of the total of 4,676 arrivals from countries of the former Soviet Union [M M-T, 2001, pp. 46-47]. [Voutira, 2003, pp. 61-68].1 The use of these restrictive and there has been a lamentable labels is significant because they establish lack of policy vis-à-vis non-ethnic Greek identities and confer entitlements such as migrants. For example, although since 1991 subsidized housing, access to language the major migrant influx has been from training programs and social services. Albanian labour migrants (calculated on the Where the notion of a privileged and or basis of the 2001 national state census to be preferential treatment of these migrants 443,550) [Baldwin-Edwards, 2004, p. 15],2 emerges is in the context of a comparison there has been no equivalent state response with ‘undocumented migrants’ (e.g. mainly with respect to them. In this context Greece Albanians, Iraqis, Afghans), refugees seek- has been severely criticised for its extensive ing asylum and other non-European aliens use of expulsions, since 1991 and for its arriving en masse in the 1990s. With respect delayed introduction of a regularization pro- to the latter, Greek policy remains highly gram for ‘undocumented migrants’.3 1 Typically, as used in the context of Modern Greek, the 3 According to UNHCR statistics, there has been a term ‘repatriate’ (palinnostoundes) refers to the more decrease in asylum applications in the last three years in recent arrivals of Soviet Greeks by distinguishing them Greece, contrary to the prevailing trend in Europe. The from the political refugees of the Greek Civil War, who acceptance rate has been also one of the lowest ones fled to communist countries and were granted the right among EU states. In 2002-4 the acceptance rate of asy- to return to Greece (epanapatrizomenoi) after the end lum seekers in Greece dropped to a dire 0,08%. The rel- of the military junta (1974). atively small number of refugee inflows is seen as one 2 The issue of documenting the different categories of of the main factors that have contributed to the inertia legal and illegal migrants in Greece demographically is of the Greek state in the refugee protection domain a particularly thorny one because no official base line [Sitaropoulos, 2001]. Evidently unprotected aliens, data is readily available. This view is well-argued and especially in small numbers, possess little political critically presented by Baldwin-Edwards 2004. clout in a foreign host country, while the national elec- torates are at best indifferent towards them. 535 THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK POLICY FOR THE RECEPTION OF REPATRIATES One important set of considerations in By 1993 some 120,000 Soviet Greeks had assessing policies and their impact on social ‘repatriated’ to Greece. In the official publi- life is how policies - and policy makers - cations of the National Foundation the construct their subjects [Shore and Wright, assumption that Soviet Greek ‘repatriates’ 1997, p. 3]. Within the discipline of anthro- are Greeks appeared to be unassailable. The pology there has been a novel approach that meaning of Greek in this context was challenges the view of ‘policy’ as a tool informed by the bureaucratic criteria of used to regulate populations from top down identifying a Greek in terms of a repatria- through rewards and sanctions. It focuses on tion visa acquired in Moscow through the a reconceptualization of governance not as embassy. Since the acquisition of this visa asimple, neat, linear and rational activity involves, in principle, the proof of one’s but as a complex process by which collec- ethnic Greek descent, the assumption that tive decisions not only impose conditions those who come with a visa were Greeks from above and outside but influence peo- simply reaffirmed the belief that the bureau- ple’s indigenous norms of conduct so that cracy worked. The Greek state’s eventual they themselves contribute, not necessarily acknowledgement that the people could consciously, to a government’s model of acquire repatriation visas through illegal social order. Using this revised notion of means, and that people who had claims to policy, this section details the ‘trial and Greekness could not acquire repatriation error’interactive process of policy forma- visas because they lacked the necessary tion that is identified in three main stages of funding, seriously undermined this view evolution covering 15 years (1990-2005). [Kamenides, 1996, pp. 12-14]. Overall, however, the perception of the newcomers Phase A: Crisis-management and as ‘Greeks’ remained dominant. What has rural settlements changed is the debate about what criteria The National Foundation for the Reception should be used to define Greekness as an and Resettlement of Repatriated Greeks entitlement in the context of the particular (EIYAPOE or “National Foundation”) type of ethnic migration. adopted the strategy of using EU and state On the side of the newcomers, particularly funding to design and implement a rural during the early 1990’s, the variety of settlement plan in Thrace, known as the expectations concerning Greece as a ‘national programme’ (to ethniko program- ‘historical homeland’ was informed by an ma), to which Greeks from the FSU would emerging mistrust toward the disintegra- be channelled was a policy essentially ting Soviet system and a progressive inspired by the ‘irreplicable achievement’, engagement with the capitalist order of the that is, the successful agricultural settlement West to which they saw themselves as of the Asia Minor refugees (1922) in having a privileged connection. The stron- Northern Greece [Voutira and Harrell-Bond, ger their disillusionment with their Soviet 2000, pp. 60-61]. The state policy assumed past, their fear of economic and physical the following: insecurity, and the threat that minority The repatriates are people with low econo- rights would be undermined in the context mic claims, demands, and therefore they can of an emerging nationalist discourse in dif- accept without any kind of complaint even ferent regions of Central Asia, Georgia or the most difficult form of life in the border- Southern Russia, the more they expected line regions’ [EYIAPOE, 1992, p. 8]; from Greece; ‘Greece will protect us’ they ‘Their presence in these regions will be able said. to create in and of itself an economic revi- talization and this would generate the ‘pull’ Phase B : Immigration management for a return migration among the local pop- (1995-2000) ulation that had emigrated’ [EIYAPOE, By 1995 the Greek national rural settlement 1991, p. 6]. plan was considered incomplete and inef- 536 fective [EIAPOE, 1994].4 Anovel state settlement in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace actor undertook to resolve the unintended with an immediate financial contribution of consequences of the early 1990’s policy 11 million drachmas per family plus an responses to the immigration influx.