Greece Gives Migrants 3-year Permits to Tackle Labor Shortage

On Tuesday, Greece’s Parliament approved a new law by a huge majority. The law will grant three-year permits to migrants to tackle the country’s labor shortage.

It foresees granting three-year stay and work permits to migrants who entered Greece illegally. This move pertains to some thirty thousand undocumented migrants from non-EU countries who are still living in Greece and have been working, albeit irregularly, for a minimum of three years.

The permit’s beneficiaries, the law says, must fulfill certain conditions. They should have a job offer from an employer in Greece for temporary work, have resided in Greece for at least three consecutive years without a residence permit, by November 30, 2023, and continue to reside in Greece past the November date.

The deadline for applying for this permit has been set to December 31, 2024. The law “does not legalize migrants, or grant them the right to permanent residence and citizenship,” Migration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Kairidis insisted in Parliament.

“It is a restricted initiative, but planned and very carefully prepared, that potentially relates to nearly thirty thousand beneficiaries,” Kairidis added. “It does not resolve the issue of a shortage of workers but is a first positive step toward a comprehensive strategy we have at the Migration and Asylum Ministry.”

The minister insisted that the government “is against illegal status, and for a legal one,” and was fighting human traffickers, but at the same time, he said, “We want to facilitate legal migration routes within reason, under terms and rules, in tandem with the Greek economy’s needs.”

The new law will not turn Greece into a “magnet for illegal migrants”

Kairidis acknowledged that there is widespread suspicion in Greek society over the issue of legalizing migrants because of its experiences in 2015 to 2017.

He added, “We are not doing something Europe is not doing. On the contrary, we are following very cautiously what Europe does, especially Italy, to which we are losing a great number of laborers recently because it is a lot easier for them to get official papers there.”

The law will not turn Greece into a magnet for illegal migration, he underlined, because the regulation does not relate to new arrivals but those who have been in the country earlier than 2022.

The law has been rigorously debated in Parliament by several opposition parties as an attempt to legalize all migrants arriving in Greece without papers. They are calling for more comprehensive laws.

Criticism also came from the ruling New Democracy as well with former PM Antonis Samaras voting against the bill on Tuesday.