Presentation at a EURA-NET meeting in Budapest 16 October 2015.

1. Transit migrants in a country
under transition: Summary of
Migrant Interviews in Greece
University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

2. Methodology
 80 interviews with temporary movers from Asian countries, Greek returnees and
family members of Greek migrants to Asian countries.
 Most of the interviews conducted in Thessaloniki, and a few in Athens, Crete, and
Lesvos.
 The sample makes references of the actual migrant population, currently in
Greece.
 Categories are sometimes overlapping

3. Distribution of Interviewees
SampleMigrant category Nationality Gender Total
Students
Afghanistan (4), Pakistan (1), Lebanon (1), Syria (1),
Iran (1)
Female (0) / Male (8) 8
Subsidiary Protection Afghanistan (1), Iran (1) Female (0) / Male (2) 2
Refugees/Asylum seekers
Bangladesh (6), Afghanistan (3), Pakistan (5), Iran (1),
Philippines (1)
Female (1) / Male (15) 16
Irregular migrants
Syria (15), Afghanistan (6), Pakistan (5), Iran (4),
Bangladesh (3), Iraq (2), Philippines (2), India (1)
Female (1) / Male (37) 38
Returnees Greece (2) Female (0) / Male (2) 2
Highly skilled Turkey (1) Female (0) / Male (1) 1
Working visa
Philippines (6) Afghanistan (1), Turkey (1), Lebanon
(1), China (1), Iran (1)
Female (6) / Male (2) 11
Family members Greece (2) Female (1) / Male (1) 2
TOTAL Female (9) / Male (71) 80

4. Status: Increasingly transit
 Since the 1990s Greece has been a destination and a transit country for immigrants
coming from Asia and Africa.
 Due to the financial crisis, Greece is increasingly used as a transit country.
 The movers’ final destination and future migratory plans are determined by
migratory chains that form the social environment of migration and by the
continuously changing legal restrictions at the national and EU level. Actually,
given the humanitarian crisis in Greece it becomes difficult to distinguish between
transit and temporary immigrants.
 Destination: Germany, the UK, France and the Scandinavian countries.

5. Motivation for migrating to/through
Greece
 political persecution of a migrant or his family in the country of origin,
 hope for better income and living conditions compared to their country of origins
and
 plans to use Greece as a transit country

6. Politico-legal aspects
 The Greek state has been rather reluctant in providing any kind of rights to migrants with the
exemption of those who classify as ‘repatriates’.
 Since January 2015 immigrants holding legal residence permit and refugees have, with some
exemptions, equal rights to citizens regarding health care, education and social security.
 Irregular migrants, low-skilled workers and asylum seekers experience harsh difficulties because of
their legal status, limited language skills and inability to establish social contacts outside their
ethnic group. With regard to regular statuses, migrants with legal residence and work permit
expressed complains regarding the processes for getting the work permission (long delays, cost).
 Complaints about ‘irrational bureaucracies’ were common among all interviewees. All of the
irregular immigrants interviewees complained about the harsh conditions of smuggling into the
country. Their perception of politico-legal rights was limited in the very basics of getting access to
asylum procedures. Those interviewed in the detention centre were rather reluctant to talk about
politics and their rights.

7. Politico-legal aspects
 A limited number of immigrants expressed interest in the political situation in Greece.
 Their political interests was mainly focusing on the rights attributed to migrants.
 Immigrants experience multiple orientation regarding their identities and life scenario. They
constantly ‘live’ in 3 different places: their country of origin, Greece and the transnational
networks of friends and relatives in other countries.

8. Socio-economic aspects
 Unemployment in Greece during the last 3 years rates between 22%-29% of the overall
population. This situation as well as the legal provisions regarding immigrants working
permits determines the socio-economic aspects of their lives. The majority of them are
unemployed or work in low-skilled and low paid precarious jobs. They are in constant
mobility between jobs and regions where jobs are available (mainly in the tourist and the
agricultural sectors). Very few of them work on jobs they use to do back home. Women
immigrants from the Philippines are mainly engaged in house-keeping jobs.
 All interviewees who have some kind of regular job sent remittances to relatives in Asia.
Asylum seekers did not have enough money to send as remittances although they may have
had relatives in need.
 Their transnational networks are not engaged in enterprises, neither in transferring goods.
Actually what is transferred is know-how.

9. Socio-cultural aspects
 With very few exemptions, the integration of temporary immigrants in present day Greece is
rather questionable.
 Most temporary migrants in Greece are not interested to learn Greek since they are not
planning to stay in the country permanently. They learn the very basics in order to cope with
everyday needs (communication with authorities, buying food and tickets, finding a job).
 Their contacts with the local society is limited to employment networks, Greek NGOs
dealing with migrants and institutions of social and solidarity economy such as social clinics
and networks providing legal advice to immigrants and refugees.

10. Socio-cultural aspects
 All immigrants highly value their relations with natives and they often exhibit them ('I have
many Greek friends'). Most of the immigrants limit their lives among co-nationals. Some of
them attempt to establish friendships with immigrants who live for a long time in Greece
such as Bulgarians and Albanians.
 Social relations with their relatives back home or in the transnational networks are the most
significant for them. All of them maintain their transnational connections by using
technology.
 Their perceptions of the future are rather different. We can classify such perceptions in three
categories: (a) Pessimism expresses as 'realism' ('I will always be a low-paid migrant'), (b)
Optimism related to their past ('It will always be better as long as I am outside Syria'), (c)
Limited optimism in relation to religious faith ('I don't know, these are God's things').

11. Revising our understanding
 Interviews with immigrants and interviews with policy
makers will be conducted in two radically different
contexts. Policy makers are responding to our questions in
the light of the recent migration crisis in EU while
interviews with immigrants were conducted in a period
with less intense social and political conditions.

12. Conclusions
 Most temporary migrants have low-paid jobs, thus producing permanent effects for the
class structure of Greek society.
 In the context of Greece temporariness has to be understood not as a solid and permanent
stage but as a dynamic process involving socio-political, economic and cultural factors.
 This form of temporariness is by definition transnational involving the past, present and
future life scenarios of immigrants in multiple places.
 From a theoretical point of view, this calls for revising an understanding of temporariness
as a contradicting process to ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’ (Ventoura 2011).
 Present day migrants are constantly ‘assimilated’ and ‘integrated’ to temporariness.

13. Recommendations
 The EU needs to seriously take into account that migrants coming from Middle East, Asia
and North Africa function as a ‘snowball’ structure. Given the deteriorating social and
political conditions in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, more people will be expected to
migrate from these countries to Europe.
 The EU is in need of a permanent mechanism of collecting qualitative information
regarding future migration flows.
 The national and supranational (EU, international) legal framework regarding migration
needs to be revised in order to cope with the radically new conditions.

14. Recommendations
 The identification processes of undocumented migrants and refugees in Greece needs to be
reviewed and made faster. The available infrastructure of the Greek state is practically unable to
cope with the rapidly increasing number of incoming migrants and refugees. By all means, the
infrastructure needs to receive contributions and resources (financial, human, material) by other
EU countries.
 The processes related to obtaining and renewing residence permits in Greece should be made
faster and easier. The processes related to asylum seekers should be made faster and less
bureaucratic.
 Complementary policies shared cultural understanding and societal acceptance, pension
transferability, migrant employment policies and remittances need to be revised given the increase
of temporary migration.