No. 4, March 2009 Greece: Immigration towards Greece at the Eve of the 21st Century. A Critical Assessment. Anna Triandafyllidou Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) Michaela Maroufof Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) with the collaboration of Marina Nikolova Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) Table of Contents List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... 4 List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ 4 List of Maps ........................................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 5 2. The Transition from an Emigration to an Immigration Country ............................................ 8 2.1 Emigration during the 20 th century .................................................................................. 8 2.2 Return Migration .............................................................................................................. 9 2.3 The shift to immigration ................................................................................................. 11 3. Main Demographic Features ................................................................................................ 13 3.1 The Size of the Immigrant Population ........................................................................... 13 3.2 National Composition of the Immigrant Population ...................................................... 17 3.3 Reasons for Migrating to Greece ................................................................................... 20 3.4 Gender and Age .............................................................................................................. 20 3.5 Marital Status and Family Composition ......................................................................... 21 3.6 Educational Level ........................................................................................................... 22 4. Immigrant Insertion in the Greek Labour Market ................................................................ 23 4.1 Albanians ........................................................................................................................ 27 4.2 Co-ethnics from the former Soviet Union ...................................................................... 27 4.3 EU Citizens from new member states ............................................................................ 28 4.3.1 Bulgarians ................................................................................................................ 28 4.3.2 Romanians ............................................................................................................... 29 4.3.3 Poles ........................................................................................................................ 29 4.4 Eastern Europeans and Asians ....................................................................................... 29 4.4.1 Ukrainians ............................................................................................................... 30 4.4.2 Pakistanis and Bangladeshis .................................................................................... 30 4.4.3 Filipinos ................................................................................................................... 31 4.4.4 Indians ..................................................................................................................... 31 4.5 Ethnic business development ......................................................................................... 31 4.6 An assessment of migrant insertion into the Greek labour market ................................ 32 5. The evolution of immigration policies in Greece during the past 15 years ......................... 34 6. Migration Control ................................................................................................................. 40 6.1 Controls at the Border .................................................................................................... 40 6.1.1 The Turkey-Greece irregular migration path .......................................................... 41 6.1.2 The Northern Greek Border .................................................................................... 44 6.2 Internal Controls ............................................................................................................. 45 7. Migration management through regularisation programmes and stay permit issuing and renewal ..................................................................................................................................... 48 7.1 The procedure of inviting a foreign worker (metaklisi) ................................................. 48 7.2 Securing a permit and a legal job ................................................................................... 51 8. Media Discourses and Public Opinion on Migration in Greece ........................................... 54 8.1 Media Discourses ........................................................................................................... 54 8.2 Public opinion ................................................................................................................ 57 9. Parties, Trade Unions and Migration ................................................................................... 60 10. Social Integration Policies .................................................................................................. 66 10.1 Housing Policies ........................................................................................................... 66 10.2 Antidiscrimination Policies .......................................................................................... 67 10.3 Naturalization ............................................................................................................... 67 2 10.4 Education Policy .......................................................................................................... 69 11. Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................................... 71 References ................................................................................................................................ 74 Newspaper Articles .............................................................................................................. 79 Websites ............................................................................................................................... 80 ANNEX I: List of Interviews ................................................................................................... 81 3 List of Tables Table 1.1: Net Migration in Greece during the post-war period ................................................ 5 Table 3.1 Estimate of total immigrant stock in Greece, April 2008 ........................................ 15 Table 3.2: Apprehensions of illegal aliens in Greece ............................................................... 17 Table 3.3 National Composition of the Migration Stock in 2001 and 2008 ............................ 19 Table 4.1: Asian Immigrants in Greece ................................................................................... 30 Table 6.1: Top five Nationalities of Illegal Immigrants Apprehended at the Greek Sea Boarders ................................................................................................................................... 43 Table 6.2: Major expulsions from Greece according to nationality (in thousands) ................. 45 Table 7.1: Complaints at a Labour Inspectorate in Northern Athens ....................................... 52 Table 10.1: Acquisition of Greek citizenship by EDTO holders (1998-2007) ........................ 68 List of Figures Figure 2.1: Average annual number of emigrants and return migrants per one thousand residents ...................................................................................................................................... 9 Figure 2.2: Net Migration in Greece during the post-war period (in thousands) ..................... 11 Figure 3.1: Migration influx towards Greece during the past 20 years .................................... 14 Figure 3.2: Reasons for migrating to Greece ........................................................................... 20 Figure 3.3: Age distribution of the foreigner population in Greece ......................................... 21 Figure 3.4: Age distribution of the total Greek population ...................................................... 21 Figure 3.5: Educational level of Total and Immigrant population (2004-2005) ...................... 22 Figure 4.1: Immigrant Insertion into the Greek Labour Market (per sector of employment) .. 25 Figure 6.1: Aliens apprehended at the border or in the inland ................................................. 40 List of Maps Map 6.1: Greece and Turkey .................................................................................................... 42 4 1. Introduction Emigration trends from Greece started diminishing