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Is the integration strategy effective and, if so, what are the tangible results at a local, regional and national level?

Code:
RED108
Key Area:
Policies On Integration - Cohesion
Strand(s):
Equality
24/02/2012 - 20:09
Short Answer

Not the strategy as such.

Qualitative Info

According to the evaluation of MIPEX, "after previous governments’ limited integration actions (e.g. Estia programme), Greece made the greatest overall progress of any MIPEX country (+10) with just 3 laws from the new government, though politicised among right-wing parties. Immigrants and their descendants may see slight improvements in all MIPEX areas, except longterm residence and anti-discrimination.To know whether these reforms are properly implemented in practice, Greece must develop a culture of using statistics and policy evaluation for integration. Greece’s integration policies are now average for Europe, scoring in-between new countries of immigration in Southern Europe. Policies are also more coherent, with strands ranging from 40 to 57 instead of 18 to 56. Both political participation and citizenship were improved in the same law, with reference to European standards and established immigration countries’ policies. Where most European countries do best (family reunion, longterm residence, anti-discrimination), Greece only follows minimum standards from EU law."

For the Housing loan programme for Greek Roma, the RAXEN report on Roma housing conditions mentions: "The programme was initially adopted in 2002 and was repeatedly amended in order to facilitate access to the procedure, and to make its implementation more flexible. It is noted that the loan programme is financially entirely covered by the national state budget. Until 30 Janaury 2009 a total of 7,686 decisions recognising housing support beneficiaries have been issued, accounting for 85.4 per cent of the total planned number of loans to be granted. 6,151 housing loans have been allocated after the beneficiaries agreed a contract with a bank (80 per cent of the approved loan grants). It is also noted that in total, 32,881 funding applications have been submitted to 306 municipalities. However, as the Interior Ministry points out, more applications have been submitted by the same persons, or submitted twice in different stages, or were submitted by non-beneficiaries, thus by people not needing housing support. Despite its large financial scale and its multi-annual duration of implementation, the programme has received criticism for its high costs, the priorities it set, and the effectiveness of its implementation, questioning the final accomplishment of its objectives. More precisely, several problems identified by civil society are: the loan programme cannot satisfy the needs of all the applicants living under similar conditions; it is a
family-based progamme (individual loans per family unit) and cannot accrue to the needs of existing Roma settlements and wider communities. It is disputable if Roma beneficiaries will be in a position to repay, due to a lack of regular incomes; a high proportion of loans being granted to well-integrated Roma.

Groups affected/interested Migrants, Refugees, Roma & Travelers
Type (R/D)
Key socio-economic / Institutional Areas Housing, Integration - social cohesion
External Url http://www.mipex.eu/greece; http://www.i-red.eu/resources/publications-files/hlhr-kemo-i-red_romahousing_greece2009.pdf
Situation(s)
Library