A total of 50 nationals of Pakistan and Georgia will be deported from Greece, after their asylum applications were rejected, the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum has revealed.
Regarding this repatriation, Greece conducted a joint operation with Cyprus last week, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Specifically, Greece participated in the forced repatriation of 40 Pakistani nationals and 10 Georgian nationals, whose requests for international protection had been definitively rejected.
Commenting further on this decision, the Greek ministry stated that the repatriation of rejected asylum seekers poses a significant new challenge in the field of illegal immigration.
Member States are obliged to step up the relevant procedures in order to protect the credibility of national asylum systems, ensuring that only those in need of protection can remain in Europe.
In 2022, over 422,000 non-EU citizens were ordered to leave the EU, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
The highest number of nationals who were ordered to leave a Member State country were Algerians (33,535), Moroccans (30,510), and Pakistanis (25,280). Meanwhile, Greece was among the top three EU countries in the number of returns.
Among EU countries, France reported the largest number of non-EU citizens ordered to leave its territory (135 650), followed by Croatia (40 525) and Greece (33 500).
Greece has recently introduced various measures in an effort to discourage the unsafe migration through the sea. Regarding this issue, the Greek authorities are planning to facilitate the process of obtaining legal residence in the country.
Moreover, the Greek minister of Migration and Asylum, Dimitris Kairidis, said that 2024 will be the year of legal migration.
Last December, the Greek government passed a legislation, offering residence and work to 30,000 undocumented migrants with job offers, mainly agricultural workers. This law was approved amid the country’s labour shortages in various sectors.
Furthermore, Greece has granted legal status to over 3,400 undocumented Bangladeshi migrants last year. This regularisation process was made under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), an agreement signed between Athens and Dhaka in 2022.
However, over 1,000 applications submitted by Bangladeshi migrants were rejected for various reasons. Apart from 2023 applications, another 113 Bangladeshi applied for legal residence as of February 15 this year. On the other hand, over 5900 applications are still pending.
