A dispute over bureaucratic barriers facing Greeks born abroad has reached Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis directly, with Greek-American attorney and community leader Kostas Alexakis saying he raised the issue with the prime minister in San Francisco and received a commitment that the problem would be addressed.
“I spoke with the Prime Minister directly about this, when I saw him in San Francisco at an AI conference, and he was animated in that he knows of the problem and he will solve it,” Alexakis told Greek Reporter.
Mitsotakis was in San Francisco on September 22 for “The Future of AI Elsewhere,” an Endeavor Greece event bringing together the prime minister with Greek and Greek-American founders and executives in artificial intelligence and technology. The gathering came during a technology-focused California visit that included meetings at NVIDIA and Sequoia Capita.
Alexakis said the prime minister’s response represented an important acknowledgment after months of efforts to draw attention to what he sees as an unnecessary administrative barrier preventing some Greeks abroad from having their citizenship properly recorded.
“The Prime Minister has said he is aware of the problem and is focused on fixing it,” Alexakis said. “Keeping public attention on the issue will help make sure that commitment turns into action.”
His account, however, marks a significant escalation of a dispute that Greek Reporter examined in detail earlier this year, when diaspora Greeks described lengthy delays and administrative hurdles in securing formal recognition of citizenship they say is already theirs by descent.
The citizenship issue Alexakis raised with Mitsotakis
The dispute concerns people born outside Greece whose mother or father was already a Greek citizen and registered with a Greek municipality at the time of their birth.
Under Greece’s Citizenship Code, a child of a Greek father or mother acquires Greek citizenship by birth. Alexakis’ argument is not that citizenship should be granted more broadly, but that Greek authorities should distinguish between acquiring citizenship and recording a citizenship status that already exists under the law.
Alexakis claims that distinction is being blurred by consular procedures as Greek consular authorities in the United States currently require the parents’ marriage to be registered in Greece before they will proceed with registering the birth of their child abroad.
For adults seeking to have their status recorded decades after they were born, that can create a serious obstacle. Their parents may be deceased, divorced or estranged, records may be difficult to obtain, or the applicant may have no practical ability to complete a civil-status procedure involving a marriage to which he or she was never a party.
Alexakis argues that no nationality statute makes prior registration of the parents’ marriage a condition of the citizenship the child acquired at birth. He described the marriage-registration requirement as an administrative “chokepoint” that can prevent otherwise eligible diaspora Greeks from moving forward.
Greek government pamphlet appears to describe a different process
The controversy is particularly striking in light of a citizenship pamphlet being circulated by the Greek government itself. The English-language document bears the names of both the Ministry of Interior’s General Secretariat for Citizenship and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.It sets out two principal routes for people of Greek descent living abroad.
For someone whose mother or father was a Greek citizen and registered in a Greek municipality at the time of that person’s birth, the pamphlet says: “You can acquire Greek citizenship by simply declaring your birth at the Greek Consulate in your place of residence.” The pamphlet does not state in that section that the parents’ marriage must first be registered in Greece before the birth can be declared.
That description is difficult to reconcile with the procedure currently presented by Greek consular authorities in the United States, where prior registration of the parents’ marriage is required before birth registration proceeds.
The apparent contradiction is significant because both descriptions come from the Greek state.
One tells diaspora Greeks in this category that they can establish their status by “simply declaring” their birth at a consulate. The other imposes an additional civil-registration step involving their parents before that declaration can be processed.
That discrepancy does not by itself establish that the consular requirement is unlawful. Civil registration and nationality involve related but distinct administrative rules. It does, however, mean that official Greek guidance presents the process in materially different ways to Greeks abroad.
Citizenship at birth or an application for citizenship?
The government pamphlet makes another distinction that goes to the heart of Alexakis’ argument.
When a mother or father was already a Greek citizen and registered in Greece at the time of the applicant’s birth, the pamphlet says the individual can proceed by declaring the birth.But if the parent became Greek only after the child was born, through a decision by a Greek authority, the document says the individual must “submit an application to acquire Greek citizenship.” The difference is significant.
In the first case, the pamphlet presents the procedure as one centered on declaring the birth of a person whose parent was already Greek. In the second, it expressly describes an application to acquire citizenship.
Alexakis says the bureaucracy should reflect that distinction. “An adult who can establish that a parent was Greek when he or she was born should not first have to resolve the parents’ marital records before the Greek state will record the applicant’s own birth and citizenship,” he notes.
Greek ministries say they are simplifying procedures for the diaspora
The same pamphlet emphasizes the government’s stated aim of making citizenship procedures easier for Greeks abroad.
Interior Minister Thodoris Livanios says in the document that the General Secretariat for Citizenship is undertaking the “simplification” of procedures for people of Greek descent and, in coordination with consular authorities, is working to streamline processes and expedite citizenship procedures.
Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis similarly says his ministry is working to “upgrade, simplify, and digitize services for Greeks Abroad” while improving the handling of requests by consular authorities.
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