Critical Perspectives and Insights on Greece's Return Migration Infrastructures: Second GAPs Stakeholder Expert Panel Meeting Organised by EKKE
GAPs Stakeholder Expert Panel roundtable discussion organised by EKKE in Greece, December 17, 2024
The second Stakeholder Expert Panel meeting of the GAPs project took place in the EKKE’s offices in Athens, Greece and also online on 17 December 2024. The Stakeholder Expert Panels (SEPs), established in each GAPs partner country, include country experts and aim to provide expertise, advice and feedback to the research teams, thus fostering crucial links between the research and policy communities.
The roundtable discussion on the work currently being undertaken by EKKE on Return Migration Infrastructures (RMIs) made a significant contribution to the ongoing debates on migrants’ returns . By incorporating critical feedback from various stakeholders, the discussions pushed the boundaries of conventional return migration policies, helping to refine both the academic understanding and policy approach to these practices.
Participants in the SEP included representatives from the Greek National Commission for Human Rights’ Recording Mechanism of Informal Forced Returns, the Greek Ombudsman’s External Audit of Forced Returns, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Office in Greece, the Greek Council for Refugees and the NGO HIAS Hellas.
The discussion revolved around the three different types of RMIs in Greece, namely pushbacks, forced returns and the Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) programme run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). More particularly, SEP members commented on the systematization and infrastructuralisation of pushback practices at the Greek borders and new questions were raised on the notion of “push-forward” and related practices.
As regards AVRR, the discussion included issues of voluntariness and coercion as well as the importance of migrants’ multiple trajectories, including re-migration in Greece as well as circular routes. Finally, the role of Open Centre for migrants registered for AVRR (OCAVRR) in accommodating returnees was discussed as well as its character as a out of detention facility.
The EKKE team presented the preliminary findings of the primary qualitative research conducted in WP3 on the implementation of these types of returns, with a special focus on AVRR. All SEP members, and particularly the representative of the Greek Council for Refugees who kindly agreed to act as an external reviewer for the WP3 country dossier provided comments and suggestions on the draft and contributed to significantly improve the work of the EKKE team.