Greece has announced its plan to introduce a law to improve the
procedure for issuing and extending residency permits to lawful migrants, and
they have designated 2024 as the "year of legal migration."
Dimitris Kairidis, the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, has stressed the significance of streamlining the procedure for lawful immigrants.
The country intends to streamline its administrative system
to reduce the time it takes to provide residency permits—a procedure
that can take up to two years. Minister Kairidis declared that the
nation will establish four new biometric data gathering centres—three in Athens
and one in Thessaloniki—within the first half of this year.
“Within the first half of
2024, four new biometric data collection centres will be opened, three in
Athens and one in Thessaloniki, to free up staff,” he stated.
The challenges migrants face in renewing their residency permits, even in the presence of lawful
residency, employment, tax payments, and contributions, have been highlighted
by Greek Minister Kairidis. He underlined that by updating the procedure, up to
850,000 migration files might be handled by the first half of 2026. Kairidis stressed
how crucial it is to shorten the processing period to ease the lives
of migrants and shorten the time required for these applications.
In response to a labour
crisis across multiple industries, Greece introduced a law in December of last
year permitting migrants to get a three-year residence and work permit.
According to the Greek Ministry of Labor, this policy would help some 30,000
unauthorized migrants. Nevertheless, the licenses are only granted to
individuals who have resided in Greece for a minimum of three years. According
to UNHCR figures, approximately 45,996 migrants arrived in Greece in December
2023, suggesting a substantial volume of applications requiring processing.
Share this:
Post a Comment