New clarifications on the amendment for “land workers” were given to the national delegation today, Monday Dimitris Kairides.

“The regulation we are bringing is not legalization, because it does not give the right to permanent residence and citizenship. It is a limited initiative but, planned and very carefully prepared, which potentially concerns around 30,000 beneficiaries. It does not solve the problem of the lack of workers, but it is a first positive step in the direction of an integrated strategy that we have in the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum” said the minister.

Dimitris Kairides accused those who disagree that “either they don’t want to read it, or they don’t know how to read it, or they insist on things that don’t exist”.

“This arrangement gives the right to illegal residents in Greece for three years or more, to work legally and in no way is it a change of policy. Our policy rests on two stable pillars and one complements the other. We are against the illegal and in favor of the legal. We are doing everything against the illegal trafficking of immigrants, but at the same time we want to facilitate the legal migration routes in a reasonable manner, with conditions and rules, according to the needs of the Greek economy”, said Mr. Kairidis.

As the minister said, “the sense of security must be ensured in Greek society to accept legal immigration and indeed there is a difficulty in accepting legal immigration, because the country is facing a ghost, a nightmare, and it is the chaos that has taken over the ND in 2019 and the tragic experience of the period 2015-2019”.

“Indeed the Greeks are suspicious and they have the right to ask and be wary of our initiatives because really what we experienced in 15, 16, 17 must not be experienced again and we don’t live it again,” he pointed out.

Mr. Kairides insisted that “the regulation is not legalization, because it does not give a right to permanent residence, citizenship, it just gives a right to legal work to people who have been here for many years and have and can work, and for those who work.”

“It is not something unprecedented for Greece. We have a standing mechanism to issue papers as early as 2014 and earlier, to people who are here illegally. We are not original in relation to Europe. On the contrary, we are very wary of following Europe and especially Italy, towards which we have had a large labor force leakage recently, because it is much easier to get papers there. And Greece is not a magnet, because it does not concern new arrivals, not even people who came in 2022 or 2023. It concerns earlier arrivals and not illegal arrivals”, underlined the Minister of Immigration and added:

“I’m clear, and the evidence says so, whatever one end of the political spectrum is trying to say. The vast majority leave Greece, either as refugees or as irregular immigrants and end up in the rich European North, in Germany. And yes the magnet is Germany and the North. That is where they are headed and Greece remains a transit country and not a final destination. Most of those who will make use of the provision are those who came legally to Greece, worked legally, and for some reason did not renew their residence permits in Greece, Albanians, Georgians, domestic workers from the Philippines or elsewhere. Now we give them an opportunity to leave the lawlessness regime, to leave black work, the unregistered and the unidentified and at the same time to bring revenue to the State and the insurance funds, to fight the unfair competition caused by black work”.

“With this arrangement, we prove that we follow the middle path, the path of logic, between the extremes, the path that brings results. And in this the ND has a greater responsibility as the largest faction of the European Center-Right – now that this issue is burning Europe on the way to the European elections – to show everyone, and the rest of the Europeans, that here in Greece, we can also borders to guard, and to be very strict against the illegal, but at the same time to use the so-called legal immigration to our advantage according to our needs and priorities”, concluded Mr. Kairidis.