07/08/2012
Greece has begun a huge sweep to clear out illegal immigrants from the country. Called operation "Zeus Xenios" (Zeus, the protector of hosts), it is involving 4,500 police officers and immigration officials. As of yesterday, the
Greek press was reporting that an estimated 5,000 illegal immigrants will be detained in detention centres in various parts of the country.
We last saw something like this in Italy
in 2007 but this time, minister for public order and citizen protection, Nikos Dendias, is saying that this is no short-term change but a new policy direction. "We will not allow it to return to the previous chaotic and unacceptable situation", he says.
The round-up has been picked up by the international and domestic media, with the
Daily Mail citing claims by Dendias that mass migration had brought the country to the brink of collapse.
"The country is being lost, What is happening now is [Greeceâs] greatest invasion ever", he is quoted as saying. "Whoever is arrested will be held and then deported". So far, 88 people have been deported in a special charter flight, back to Pakistan, with the costs borne by the
European Return Fund.
Ironically, here we have the EU doing something which looks to be useful, making available â¬676 million between 2008-13 as part of the general programme "Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows".
The system being taken up here seems to be the "integrated return plan" which finances up to 50 percent of enforced return schemes for non-EU country nationals, "particularly those who no longer fulfil the conditions for entry or stay in the host country".
All the same, the fund is going to have its work cut out if it is to dent the problem. Out of a population of nearly 11 million, Greece has about 800,000 legally registered immigrants, while the number of those without papers is estimated at more than 350,000.
The charter flights are going to be busy if Dendias means what he says.
