Months after scrapping a previous law allowing second generation migrants to apply for Greek citizenship, Greece's Interior Ministry on Monday introduced a new immigration code.
The new provisions offer a glimple into the kind of bureaucratic hurdles migrants face in Greece: the categories of residence permits will be reduced from 50 to nineteen, and migrants will need to supply authorities with twenty less documents than they previously had to when applying for a residence permit.
The children of those migrants who have been living in Greece for a long time will now be able to obtain permanent residence permits just like their parents. Up to now, such children were living in a legal limbo. They will also have the opportunity to apply for citizenship when they turn eighteen. It is not clear what will happen with children of migrants not having the right to live legally in Greece or those of refugees who have not been able to apply for asylum.
Migrants with a residence permit may also be allowed to travel to other European Union countries in the future.
“Greece for the first time has a law for migrants,” Interior Minister Yannis Michelakis said. “We are confronting the issues facing second generation migrants, granting them the rights of longtime residents in Greece,” he said.
Migrants in Greece have faced attacks by supporters of neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn and are often harassed by the police.
For the new legislation to apply, it will have to be approved by parliament first.
The akward distinction between refugees and migrants
The Lampedusa disaster, where over 180 African migrants drowned when their boat sank off the Italian coast in the early hours of Thursday 4 October, has fired a debate over the European Union's migration policy.
Italy, Greece and Poland currently face intense pressure as they are on established migratory routes.
Countries such as Germany, which is surrounded by other E.U. countries, have another advantage accorded to them by the Dublin 2003 regulation: refugees reaching the European Union can only apply for asylum in the country where they arrive first.
According to Der Spiegel weekly, Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy, ranks eleventh in Europe when it comes to the number of asylum seekers it accepts in proportion to its population.
The latest figures available for Greece show that in 2011 only 410 people were granted asylum.
Last week, the head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, in a press release wrote: “We all bear responsibility and have to find a solution together.” He was referring only to Italy and the Lampedusa tragedy.