By Her Excellency Mrs. Teresa Paraskevi Angelatou, Ambassador of Greece to the Kingdom of The Netherlands
As we celebrated, few days ago, the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of the Schengen Convention, countries like Greece, being on the European border line, understand better than others common security as well as common European asylum issues.
The Schengen Convention made it possible for citizens to travel freely to visit friends and family, make business trips or visit other Schengen countries as tourists, without giving up on security. The Common European Asylum System made it possible for any alien or stateless person to seek international protection out of fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, etc.
Facing the immense challenge of a large flow of irregular migrants in the recent years, Greece has accelerated the implementation of actions for the establishment and functioning of the new Asylum Service in 2013. This new Service is independent and is operated by civil servants trained by specialists in the field with the cooperation of UNHCR and EASO, the European Asylum Support Office.
Establishing a “fair and efficient” asylum system is an integral part of a modern and comprehensive management policy of migration flows. A fair but speedy asylum procedure, as the one being implemented nowadays in Greece, ensures that purely economic migrants have no reason to resort to the asylum system, since they are aware that their claim will be denied shortly, while actual refugees receive the protection afforded by international conventions and national law within a reasonable time frame. The distinction between economic migrants and refugees is a complex process.
Migration flows towards Greece are “mixed”, since the refugees and the economic migrants use the same transit routes and entry points to get into the country. Both often lack legal documents or identity documents, thus turning to networks of facilitators so as to avoid border controls, rendering the recognition and verification of their country of origin and their need for international protection extremely difficult. As far as the asylum seekers are concerned the case workers can understand, using specific methods and “tools”, which is their country of origin and determine through the asylum procedure, which ones are refugees.
Not all irregular migrants request asylum. International experience shows that the better and more complete the official information provided to the third-country nationals relating to the legal framework for international “protection” is, the fewer non-refugees will apply for asylum. On the contrary, when the main source of information of third-country nationals is, for example, the illegal trafficking and exploitation networks, then there is a rise in international protection claims without valid reasons.
Greece has been a country of origin of refugees and migrants for many decades. During the last twenty years Greece has been turned into a country of destination and entry into the EU, due to the political and economic stability as well as due to its geographic location, which makes it a natural crossroads between the countries of northern and central Europe and the countries of Asia and Africa. Therefore it is very important to have a reliable asylum procedure as part of a comprehensive management system of migration flows, which will secure the refugee from the dangers in his country of origin, as well as our country from any exploitation of this process from persons who are not entitled to receive protection.
Apart from the speedy processing time, the Asylum Service lays particular importance to the quality of its procedures and, especially, of the decisions it issues. Emphasis is given to the correct information imparted to persons interested in asylum, to the asylum seekers and to the beneficiaries of international protection. In addition, every effort is made to ensure all the rights stipulated in national and European legislation.
In the course of its first eighteen months of operation (from June 2013 to November 2014), the Asylum Service has registered 13,289 applications for international protection. The asylum seekers who submitted their applications in Greece during the aforementioned period originate from 96 different countries. The main countries of origin are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Albania, Syria, Bangladesh, Georgia, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Sudan and Eritrea.
