Border Management and Refugee Protection in Greece Threatening Protection Rights, Re-territorialising Borders?

RESPOND Policy Brief [2021/15]

Authors: Eva Papatzani, Nadina Leivaditi, Ilias Aggelos, Electra Petracou - University of the Aegean

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY  

From the 1990s onwards, Greece has been an immigration country, for migrants from Central and Eastern European countries, but also later for migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In 2015, 856,723 people arrived by sea to the Eastern Aegean islands, accounting for 80% of total arrivals in Europe. More than half were Syrians, 20% were Afghans and 7% Iraqis. Specific developments from 2011 to 2019, such as the extended border management in Greece and the EU, the EU-Turkey Statement and the implementation of the EU Hotspot Approach resulted to the transformation of Greece into a country of obligatory stay for many refugees and asylum seekers. The implementation of the legal framework on asylum tends to threaten protection rights for large numbers of asylum seekers and refugees in the country, due to the serious concerns arising regarding inhuman living conditions on Hotspots, inadequate reception infrastructures, pushbacks, arrests, detention, and restricted legal and social rights. Furthermore, border management results to re-territorialisation of space, by creating buffer zones in Greece that function as multiple filtering mechanisms, not only regarding the movement inside or outside it, but also the movement towards other EU nation states. Since 2019, the shift in the Greek political context, if combined with the EU New Migration Pact tend to regularize an even stricter asylum and protection system that reduces fundamental guarantees. In this Policy Brief, we focus on the most important developments on border management and refugee protection in Greece, based on the outcomes of RESPOND research project, conducted with a main focus on Lesvos island, in Greece, and focused on the period between 2011 and 2019.

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