Conference on the integration of refugees in Greek society

The integration of refugees in Greek society was discussed during today’s first day of the two-day Workshop Policy for Refugees, organized by…
the School of Political Studies of the Council of Europe, in Technopolis, Gazi.
The event involved representatives of institutions and organizations that contribute to the management of refugee flows in Greece and in other european countries.
During his address, the secretary-general of the ministry of Migration Policy, Vasilis Papadopoulos, pointed out that in the phase of integration, education is important for the Greek government. Also, the incorporation of terms of access of refugees to the labour market, however, as he admitted, there is a problem with refugees προκαταγράφηκαν, as well as the existing laws do not provide for them the ability to work. In this sector, he added, there is a thought of amending the existing legislation so as to enable the refugees who have προκαταγραφεί to work, after a period of time. “The reception and integration of refugees is linked, and I know that there are specific solutions for refugees, which do not provide proper integration. But we’re trying to revamp their reception areas,” he continued.
The mayor of Athens, Giorgos Kaminis, observed that there is a concentration of apartments for the refugees, in areas of Athens, where already inhabited by immigrants, while in these regions shows elevated rates of the “Golden Dawn”. Then they proposed to give incentives to young Greeks to dwell in the neighborhoods, which will benefit young people and refugees and the neighborhoods.
With the above proposal, agreed, and the mayor of Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris, who also asked to use the abandoned military camps, which have good infrastructure for hosting the refugees. “We need to make life easier because they have lost everything,” he said.
Trenchant criticism of the handling of the Greece and Europe as a refugee, brought by the person in charge of projects of the Greek section of “Doctors Without Borders”, an Apostle of Βεΐζης. “Europe is failing, Greece has failed, humanity fails. It is an utter failure by all of us, the whole of the international community. About 11,000 people are locked in the islands, and 40,000 or 50,000 are in the accommodation centres, without having even the minimum standards set by the united nations High Commissioner”, he stressed and added that first of all we should discuss for the accommodation of refugees out of the reception centres and then to discuss the training or work”.
The conference is organized in cooperation with the organization “Symβiosis” and the Municipality of Athens and with the support of the Norwegian embassy in Greece and the NGOS for Local Democracy “ALDA”.