PERCEPTIONS Country Report – Greece

Border control fall under the responsibility of the Hellenic Police, responsible for both the external and the internal land borders, and the Hellenic Coastguard, responsible for the internal and external maritime borders. On the regional level, local authorities, municipalities, and other local actors along with civil society organizations and NGOs, as well as international government agencies such as UNHCR, play a pivotal role in the reception and integration of migrants and refugees. Today, according to statistics since 2018, the immigrant population with a legal residence status consist mostly of Albanians (more than half of the total foreign population), Bulgarians, Georgians, Rumanians and Pakistanis. As far as gender is concerned, it is balanced among men and women, with the number of men to be slightly dominant.

The asylum applications from 2015 to 2016 presented an increase of 287.1%. This increase of immigration and refugee flows had a substantial impact on the existing Greek Migration and Asylum Policies. Recently, the Government of Greece decided to suspend all new asylum applications for 30 days (March 1st, 2020 – April 1st 2020) due to the extraordinary circumstances and the necessity to confront what is referred to as an “asymmetric threat to the national security”.