*The investigation was published in the Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper on Friday, August 8, 2025.

Investigation: Ioanna Louloudi, Nikos Morfonios – MIIR ,Mohammad Bassiki – SIRAJ, Sofia Turati, Lorenzo Di Stasi
Illustrations: Konstantina Maltepioti 

George Hallack in London for Air Mediterranean’s maiden flight, November 2, 2017. – Source: Air Mediterranean

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, flights were reduced, but other opportunities opened up. Such as the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) Assisted Voluntary Returns (AVRR) program, co-financed by EU and national funds. On August 6 2020, the airline undertook the operation of a charter flight that would implement the voluntary return to Iraq of 134 migrants of Iraqi nationality, under the auspices of the Ministry of Μigration. An IOM spokesperson confirmed that the international organisation coordinated the operation and the competitive bidding process, which Air Mediterranean had won. It also added that “this remains the only AVRR flight conducted with that airline”. In 2024, however, the company conducted eight similar voluntary return flights from Italy to Tunisia, in agreement with the Italian Ministry for Internal Affairs. 

According to data collected from Flightradar24, the airline had operated 18 flights between Damascus and Benghazi from May until July 2023, and 52 flights from Benghazi to Athens (but not vice versa) between December 2022-July 2023. 

It remains unclear exactly which passengers it served and how the company could guarantee that it would not carry “individuals who collaborated with the Syrian regime or were on the US sanctions list”, as assured by operations director Marios Samprakos, since it needed the Assad government’s permission to operate in Syria. It also remains unknown what guarantees were in place for the safety of flights in Syrian and Libyan airspace.

Mohamad Majd Deiry (left, in white) on the runway at Damascus International Airport, after the arrival of the Air Mediterranean flight from Athens on June 30, 2025 – Source: Syrian Civil Aviation Authority

Roaming like free birds

Air Mediterranean’s flights to Syria were suspended in October 2023, shortly before the EU sanctions on Al-Daj and his companies came into effect in January 2024. The flights to Damascus resumed a month ago and are currently continuing through another agency, Almera Travel & Tourism. 

Deiry, the FBI fugitive weapons smuggler, is making public appearances in Damascus in the new political and social landscape now taking shape in the country.

The Hallak civil war is still raging. The Red Notice issued for George and Andrew Hallak has not been enforced.

What Greek and European authorities are doing to ensure that the Greek carrier and its partners, as well as other airline companies stay out of illegal activities, and that the safety of passengers is not compromised, remains unclear. 

As for the convicted Mahmoud Al-Daj, little is known about his activities after the fall of the Assad regime, except for a single Facebook post from 31 December 2024. In it, Al-Daj boasts about the arrival of the first ship at the port of Latakia loaded with cars and buses. “A new achievement that embodies our vision and ambition… for the year 2025”, he wrote, an indication of his intention to continue doing business in Syria. He later deleted the post.

His whereabouts remain unknown. 

*This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe. 

It has been published in MIIR (Greece), SIRAJ (Syria), DARAJ (Lebanon), Voxeurop (France) and l’Espresso (Italy). The report was first published in “Efimerida ton Syntakton” newspaper on August 2, 2025.

*Before the publication of this investigation, several requests for reply and clarifications were sent to Air Mediterranean and George and Andreas Hallak, but all remained unanswered. After the investigation was first published in Greece, MIIR and EfSyn received a judicial warning from Air Mediterranean and George and Andreas Hallak, who deny any connection with Mohamad Majd Deiry, reject the accusations of fraud and embezzlement in the Libank affair, and admit to their collaboration with Mahmoud Al-Daj. We will publish these judicial warnings, as well as our response, in the coming days.

**On August 6th, following the initial publication of the investigation, the Hellenic Police sent us data listing arrests made at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos Airport, for illegal entry into the country with the use of forged/altered documents from Arab and African countries of departure during the year 2023,  along with the airlines used to arrive in Greece. The data mentions 8 arrests involving Syria as the country of departure. However, in the table recording these 8 arrests, the airline the arrested passengers flew with from Syria is listed as “Unknown” in 7 of the cases – a designation not found for any other country – while the remaining entry is left blank. We requested clarifications from the Hellenic Police as to why this specific information was omitted, but we have not received a response to date. 

Authors: Janine Louloudi, Kostas Zafeiropoulos, Nikos Morfonios (MIIR)

Data Analysis – Visualizations:  Konstantina Maltepioti 

Illustration: Louiza Karageorgiou

“Mommy, he told me he’s going to cut my throat…”

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy I’m dying!“. Salamina, Friday night, December 1, 2023. 74-year-old Evangelia hears her 43-year-old daughter, Georgia Poutou, on the other end of the phone line, pleading for help. She quickly realises that her daughter has once again been beaten up by her partner. From her home she calls the police to send a patrol car, but her plea falls on deaf ears. 

Finally, she herself rushes to her daughter’s house. When she arrives, she sees Georgia lying outside in the garden of the house, bleeding. The woman cannot walk, her ankle is broken and her knees are badly knocked out. The perpetrator is nowhere to be found. The battered woman, along with her mother and her 15-year-old son – a disabled child – set off for the island’s police station.

The policemen there won’t take a statement: ‘Go to the health centre, bring the doctors’ report and then come back to press charges’, they say. No mobilization takes place to arrest the violent offender, no concern for the victim. 

The next day the physically abused woman herself insists on going to the police, even though her mother discourages her, fearing the worst. “Mommy, he said he’s going to cut my throat”, Georgia replies, as her devastated mother tells MIIR. The same fear pushes Georgia to seek protection. It was not her first savage beating by her 71-year-old partner, who has reportedly been convicted of assaulting another woman in the past – not that this has any restraining effect. 

At the station she finds other police officers who finally take her statement, advising her not to stay in her house and placing the “panic button” app on her phone, so that she can call for help if she needs it. It wasn’t enough.  

Three days later, on the morning of December 5, Georgia falls dead. Her abuser sought her out at her mother’s house where she had taken refuge. He shot her twice with a shotgun through the glass of the front-door, fatally wounding her in the abdomen and chest. The assailant was arrested but it was too late. Georgia was the 12th femicide victim for 2023 in Greece.

Femicides without end in Greece and Europe 

There is no official record of femicide in Greece, and the government insists that there is no reason to make femicide an crime in its own right. This is despite the fact that the number of women murdered or subjected to violence by men remains extremely high in the country. The consolidation of violence against women both in Greece and in Europe is reflected in the cross-border data investigation conducted for a second year by the Mediterranean Institute of Investigative Journalism (MIIR) together with 14 other European journalism organisations in the context of the European Data Journalism Network (EDJNet). 

For the needs of the investigation and in order to address the pan-European lack of comparable data on violence against women, the participating teams sought and contributed as up-to-date data as possible through requests to the relevant authorities in each country for the period 2014-2023. Data were analysed based on two primary sources: the reports of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE – provided data up to 2018) and EUROSTAT (data up to 2021). EIGE focuses on indicators measuring intimate partner violence, rape and femicide, while Eurostat focuses on intentional homicides, paying particular attention to the victim-offender relationship (partner or family member). It should be noted that EIGE considers this definition of intentional homicide by a partner or relative to be the closest to femicide. In our analysis we only included data that we were confident were consistent with EIGE standards.

By counting femicides based on data analysed to EIGE standards, we estimate at least 4221 victims in Europe between 2012-2022 (comparable data for Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Ireland, Poland and Romania are not available and not all countries have data for every year). 

If anything, the above figure gives evidence of underreporting of femicide by police authorities. This is because Eurostat’s crime statistics show that in Europe, in a total of 27 countries, 14143 intentional homicides of women happened in the same decade (regardless of the perpetrator). Of these, based on available data we analysed (for 19 countries), at least 6806 are intentional homicides of women by current/former partners (4334) and family members (2472). One realises that if there is more diligence in data collection and proper recording of the victim-perpetrator relationship by the police, then the resulting number of femicides could prove to be truly staggering.

According to the most updated figures we received from the Hellenic Police, the number of female victims of intentional homicides by male partners in 2024 was already 5 until February 29th. 

Based on the most recently released femicide data for 2022 (EIGE standards), Greece saw a 4.3% increase compared to 2021, from 23 to 24 victims, confirming that at least 2 women per month died at the hands of a partner and/or someone in their domestic environment. Germany also showed a significant increase (22%). France and Italy had a decrease of 3.3% and 12.9% respectively compared to 2021, but still have a significantly high number of female victims of femicide (118 and 61 victims respectively in 2022). On the other hand, Slovakia and Cyprus – which remains the only EU country where femicide is recognised as a specific crime as of 2022 – saw a large decrease 50% and 60% respectively.  

In terms of the highest increases for the decade 2012 to 2022, data analysed by EIGE standards show that Greece had the highest increase in femicides in 2021 with an increase of 155.6% to 23 femicides compared to 9 in 2020 (note: in last year’s report the number of victims for 2020 was estimated as 8 by police). The second highest number is in Sweden, which saw a 120% increase in 2018 (22 femicides) compared to 2017 (10), followed by Slovakia, which saw a 66.7% increase in 2020, and Croatia with 28.6% compared to 2019.

Based on newly available data for 2021, the European average number for femicides by intimate partners (EIGE) per 100.000 women (based on the 10 countries that provided data) is 0.39, a figure that corresponds to almost 4 women per million. Based on Eurostat, the average number of intentional female homicides by an intimate partner in 2021 for the exact same countries as EIGE is 2.4 per 100.000 women, a number that is lower than the official data we collected from national authorities for these countries, which could be indicative of how femicides are not correctly reported to Eurostat.

Unofficial sources are better at monitoring

For the purposes of the investigation the participating teams also collected data from unofficial sources, such as local monitoring groups for the recording of femicides. Such organizations mostly monitor media coverage with the aim of countering the underreporting of violence against women. This choice was made in order to compare the official number of femicides with the unofficial one.

This method also allows us to gain insight into countries such as Belgium that does not have any recent data in the Eurostat or Eige databases. However non-official sources estimate 101 femicides took place from 2020 to 2023 (source: “Stop Feminicide Belgie”). Significantly higher numbers of femicides compared to official sources are estimated for recent years by non-official sources in Italy, France and Spain.

Violence of all forms against women in Greece is on the rise

Femicides are often the last and irreversible stage in a process of escalating violence from the perpetrators to the victim, as the recent case in Salamina has proved. For the data investigation we analysed other indicators relating to physical, psychological, economic and sexual violence in order to highlight the variation in the number of women victims of each form of violence in recent years across Europe.

In terms of physical and sexual violence, in Greece the pandemic period was characterized by a frightening increase (110.2%) in victims of physical violence in 2020 (3609 women) and 70.9% in 2021 (6166 women), while victims of sexual violence had increased in the same two-year period from 69 to 147. The evolution of the phenomenon is even more disheartening for 2022, where a 20.5% increase in physical violence was recorded with 7430 victims, and an explosion in sexual violence (268.7%) with 542 female victims. 

In contrast, Cyprus -in the year when it legally ratified femicide- saw a 9% decrease in physical violence incidents with 1752 victims in 2022 from 1925 in 2021, when it had seen a 78.9% increase in physical violence incidents compared to 2020 (1076 victims).

“Data-collection systems across the EU member States remain very heterogeneous, as they are grounded in national crime statistics or other administrative data sources on homicide (from the judiciary or health system) or from non-governmental organisations’ media analysis. Therefore, data is not comparable, making measurement across member states currently not possible”, explains Cristina Fabre Rosell who works as Gender-based Violence Team Leader at the European Institute for Gender Equality, adding that gender-based violent crimes remain under-reported. This makes tackling violence against women and developing policies that reinforce gender equality problematic. The Gender Equality Index for 2023 is indicative of this, as countries such as Greece, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania that are at the bottom of the list, do seem to have problems in addressing violence against women.

When it comes to economic violence against women in Europe (this is the suffocating financial control or financial bleeding that a man may exert towards his current or former partner), based on available data (2019-2022), four countries show decreases in victims: Serbia, Germany, Croatia and Slovakia. Greece had no data available at all before 2021, but in 2022, 1626 women victims of economic violence were recorded for the first time in our country.

Moreover, as revealed by the investigation, there is a remarkable Europe-wide increase in the appeal for help from victims of domestic violence or third parties to national support lines, such as the “SOS 15900 Line” in Greece. For 2022, the largest increases are found in Spain (21.51%), Greece (17.28%) and Ireland (19.66%). However, in 2023 in Greece, unlike other countries, a decrease (-21.62%) was observed (-21.62%), without knowing whether this is related to fewer incidents of violence or a tendency to avoid calling for help on the part of women. 

The area that most reveals the plight of women in Europe, and the one that causes the greatest political tension, is that of rape.  

In Greece, rapes increased by 34.1% in 2022 (from 226 to 303 women) and 79.4% in 2021. Police data for 2023 indicates towards a consolidation of the high number of victims (294 women).  

Spain recorded a significant increase in rapes in 2022 (140.7%), while the Czech Republic had a large increase in both years (25.9% in 2021, 11.1% in 2022). Slovakia (7.5%), Croatia (11.3%), Cyprus (5.6%), Ireland (3.2%) and Romania (2%) also recorded an increase in rapes in 2022. 

Apart from the extent of the phenomenon, we also analysed the evolution in the penal treatment of perpetrators of rape and sexual assault over time.

Rape as a field of confrontation

The issue of rape has significantly divided the European Union, as shown by the recent negotiations to reach an agreement across member states on the new EU Directive on combatting violence against women and domestic violence, initially proposed two years ago.

On February 6, a provisional agreement was finally reached between the European Parliament and Council on EU-wide rules to combat gender-based violence and protect its victims, especially women and victims of domestic violence. It includes minimum standard rules on the protection of women victims of violence, criminalisation of certain forms of gender-based violence, tougher rules on cyber violence, better access to justice, protection and prevention, as well as establishing enhanced reporting and evidence gathering by authorities.

However, the adoption of a controversial article on rape (Article 5), which would have made any sexual act without consent a criminal offence, was not achieved.

Patriarchy

“Firstly, it is a directive covering many criminal law aspects so negotiations took more time. Secondly working on women’s rights is always difficult because of patriarchal structures that are still guiding our societies unfortunately. The main obstacle was to get consent based rape legislation included which we did not manage to get in the end. There was a lot of resistance from several member states to this even though rape is the most widespread and serious form of gender based violence”, explains Swedish MEP Evin Incir (S&D), who is the European Parliament’s co-chief rapporteur on gender-based violence in the committee on civil liberties (LIBE).

In an interview with MIIR, MEP Incir added that “the concept of ‘rape’ is highly debated due to deep-rooted patriarchal norms in society. It’s challenging to reach an agreement that defines sex without consent as rape, as outlined in the Istanbul Convention. However, we’re optimistic that our recent negotiation success in including a provision on preventing rape based on lack of consent, will prompt a shift in societal attitudes across Europe. This, in turn, could generate the necessary pressure for national governments to update their legal definitions to align with international human rights standards, such as those set forth in the Istanbul Convention. Looking ahead, we anticipate the European Commission to propose new legislation specifically addressing rape, building upon this progress”.

The far right (also) threatens women

MEP Incir explains that the significance of the Directive “is further underscored by the looming threat of a right-wing surge in the EU, emphasizing the imperative for such protective measures. While it may not meet all our aspirations, this directive sets a foundational standard and serves as a starting point for progress, reinforcing the commitment to never regress on these critical advancements”.

This concern about the changing political and social environment in Europe in relation to the increase in violence against women is also expressed by Cristina Fabre Rosell, EIGE’s Gender-based Violence Team Leader, who told MIIR that “Two years after the Covid pandemic we don’t know if it’s still because of it, or because extreme forms of violence against women have increased due to different causes that are also related to the increase of the far right movements and the anti-gender narrative. We need to do more research on this, for me rape is a burning form of violence that demands our attentionFirst and foremost we must work towards better prevention”.

The missed opportunity in Greece

The Directive is expected to be formally adopted by the European Parliament and the Council and then,  in the near future, enter into force. Member states will then have three years to implement it. In Greece an attempt to regulate prevention and combatting domestic violence against women came with the recent bill of the Ministry of Justice, which was voted in parliament with rapid procedures, focusing on the tightening of penalties for domestic violence. 

Significant organisations and collectives (European Anti-Violence Network, Diotima Centre, Mov, etc.) denounced the fact that their comments in the consultation process before the bill was passed were not taken into account. Most importantly, they denounced the introduction of amendments to the draft law which did not take into account the urgent recommendations of the GREVIO Committee (the independent authority monitoring the implementation of the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention) to the Greek government, as reflected in the first evaluation report delivered to the Greek authorities last November.

Among GREVIO’s recommendations is the need for the Greek authorities to:

• Significantly strengthen the coordination of the response to the needs of women victims of all forms of violence.
• Support and further develop the network of specialised support services and adequately address the needs of all women victims of all forms of violence. 
• Expand the number and capacity of shelters for women victims of violence throughout the country – currently there are only 20 shelters for women victims of violence, with a total capacity of around 450 individual beds.
• Ensure that accommodation is available to women in emergency situations.
• Ensure that women victims of violence have adequate access to social services that meet their needs and facilitate their recovery from violence.
• Move forward with the establishment of rape crisis centres and/or sexual violence referral centres that provide immediate medical care, trauma support, forensic examinations and immediate, short- and long-term psychological support.

Dr Kiki Petroulaki, psychologist and chair of the Board of the European Ant-Violence Network, explains that apart from the significant gaps in the protection of victims of abuse, the bill does not clarify the concept of consent in the definition of Rape, and it does not state that any sexual act or behaviour must be the product of free will. Thus lewd acts may be tried as misdemeanors. 

There is also no provision in the new law for speeding up procedures and to prioritise trials for domestic violence incidents, although since November 2021, a circular issued by the Supreme Court prosecutor, Vasilis Pliotas, called on prosecutors to intervene imminently, to further the process of arresting the presumed perpetrators of such crimes and for the related criminal cases to be heard as a matter of priority in court, so as to avoid all delays in delivering justice. In fact, the circular explicitly mentioned the term “femicide” – the first time a senior prosecutor had made an argument for the legal adoption of the term in Greece – and also called for victims of domestic violence to be supported when reporting violent behaviour against them.

Impunity

For the needs of the data investigation we tried to estimate the proportion of male offenders who are prosecuted for violence against women and end up in prison. 

Based on our analysis, Greece has an extremely low and disproportionate conviction rate for domestic violence perpetrators compared to the number of prosecutions. In 2017 the conviction rate was 2.9%, in 2018 it was 2% and in 2019 it was 1.9%. In 2021 the rate increased to 3.2%. This means that just 3 in 100 men who are criminally prosecuted, are then convicted to imprisonment. The Greek authorities did not offer data for 2022.

It is worth noting that the absolute figures may not fully reflect the situation in the reference year and that there may be anomalies in the data. For example, the registration of an offender in 2020 does not mean that the offense was committed in 2020, and similarly the imprisonment of an offender in 2020 does not mean that he committed the offense in the same year. For this reason, these rates are a relative estimate of the relationship between prosecutions and imprisonment of perpetrators of crimes of violence against women, recorded in a given time period, and should be interpreted as an indicator of a trend.

“I don’t think that manifestations of violence against women should be misdemeanours. Criminalisation is a way of dealing with violence. But criminalisation without prevention doesn’t work. We can’t rely on tightening penalties without prevention measures. This can have the opposite effect, such as increasing hatred against women. This is not the way to change attitudes, we see it with femicide, where harsh penalties do not prevent men from killing women”, says EIGE’s Cristina Fabre Rosell,  adding that member states need to invest in cross-sectoral cooperation between competent authorities.

Secondary victimisation 

Τhe communication gap between the relevant agencies, according to Dr Petroulaki, leaves women completely unprotected and vulnerable to secondary victimisation in a lengthy criminal procedure, which, she points out, is not monitored over time in its entirety. “Even if a restraining order has been granted, who monitors its implementation and what happens if it is violated? No one and nothing”, she states. This in turn exacerbates the feeling of impunity among perpetrators, who repeat and escalate the pattern of violence and, as the data shows, even go as far as femicide. 

This is the same impunity that armed the hand of the murderer of 43-year-old Georgia last December in Salamina. 

One of the last photos posted by Georgia Poutou on Facebook 6 days before the murder

Research – Text: Janine Louloudi, Maria Álvarez Del Vayo, Lucas Laursen, Ter García, Carmen Torrecillas, Adrian Maqueda
Data analysis – Illustrations: Civio 

At the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, the new occupant of the ministerial office presented his credentials a week ago. And it was exactly what anyone familiar with Makis Voridis’ path in the far-right, would expect. Appearing at the House Committee on Public Administration, Public Order and Justice (19/3), he was quick to announce that he personally made the decision to withdraw the provision of a bill that extended until the end of September the deadline for submitting applications for legalization of immigrants who have lived in Greece for more than three years and have found an employer (Article 205, para. 2) – a procedure that had been proposed by his predecessor Dimitris Kairidis, in an attempt to meet the pressing need for a workforce. He then announced that any further decision “should be linked to more restrictive policies to deal with illegal immigration from now on”. A few days later (27/3) during a visit to the ministry, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis would additionally state that legal immigration to Greece “must meet established labour market needs”.

Residence permits, initially temporary and then long-term, are the basic “paper” for proving legal residence in the country and the first step in the long process towards acquiring Greek citizenship for those foreigners who do not possess significant athletic or other qualifications to “offer exceptional services or serve an exceptional interest in the country” (Article 13 of the Code of Greek Citizenship), in order to receive honorary naturalization. Such naturalizations vary considerably, are usually quick and depend only on the political will of the government.

A very characteristic example is that of athletes who were naturalized in order to wear the colours of the Hellenic National Team, such as for example the Olympiakos basketball player Thomas Walkup, who received Greek citizenship in 2023 and participated with the Greek team in the 2024 Olympics. At least 25 athletes competed in Paris having received citizenship by decree of a European country, including Ekaterina Antropova, a Russian volleyball player naturalized by Italy in 2023, and Russian wrestler Dauren Kurugliev who gave Greece a silver medal.

However for people like Natalia, who has been living in Greece for the last 28 years, acquiring citizenship still seems like an elusive dream. She and her husband left Moldova in 1997, when the country was in a severe economic crisis, leaving behind two children. They both worked hard – she as a cleaner and housekeeper, her husband as a handyman –  and managed to bring over and raise their daughters here. The years went by, constantly renewing their residence permits, until in 2014 Natalia heard her daughters say, “Mom, we have our friends here, our studies here, we’re not going back.” It was around the time when the girls went to university, obtained Greek citizenship and encouraged her to apply for Greek citizenship.

“Citizenship unlocks the rights that individuals should have as full members in a state,” says migration researcher Jelena Dzankic, co-director of the Global Citizenship Observatory and a part-time professor at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy.

However, European countries only naturalise a small proportion of their foreign residents each year. According to the latest available figures, in 2022 the European Union, with a population of 448.4 million people, had naturalised less than 1 million people. In total, European countries host 41.2 million foreigners. Sweden naturalised the most in relation to its total population, followed by the Netherlands and Italy. Austria, Estonia and Latvia, on the other hand, naturalised the smallest proportion. Most citizenship decisions in European countries in 2022 concerned immigrants from Morocco, Syria and Albania.

The prohibitive terms

Among the factors influencing naturalisation rates, the terms requested by states for people to obtain citizenship play an important role. Firstly, the documentation of the total number of years of legal residence, ranging up to 10 years in Spain, Austria and Italy and 7 years in Greece.

At the same time, additional integration terms, such as certain years of work, language and cultural examinations, documents from the applicants’ countries of origin, are also required, which can act as barriers to entry. Persons applying for naturalisation through other channels, such as refugees or spouses of citizens, face similar requirements. There are also work or income requirements. In more than a dozen European countries, one of the requirements for citizenship is a stable source of income.

After a long wait, Natalia took her exams in 2023 to obtain Greek citizenship, spending money on the necessary documents and hours of endless studying without help. She managed to pass the exams, but her application was rejected as, working as a cleaner, she did not meet the minimum required annual income of 8,450 euros for the relevant period between 2014-2019. “I have been here legally since 1997 and all these years I have been living somehow, right? But not with what was required”, she explains to MIIR in frustration.

It took nine years from Natalia’s initial application to the announcement of the final decision on her citizenship. The corresponding time in Spain and Italy can be as long as ten years, while in Greece it is six years, although the law stipulates that the administration has 12 months to examine applications for naturalisation. There are currently more than 30,000 pending applications in our country.

Natalia, however, decided not to take the exam again, as she is now 61 years old and does not think she will ever be able to meet the income threshold. She will simply try to renew her residence permit, a process that the NGO Generation 2.0 Red estimates may take at least two years. That’s because in 2024, pending residence permit applications for third-country nationals reached 280,474, with about 32,650 new applications added in one year, from November 2023 to November 2024.

As Generation 2.0 Red reports in its latest report on Monitoring Administrative Procedures for Obtaining Citizenship (Report #2, May 2024 – August 2024)), “a key and insurmountable barrier for most applicants is the requirement to prove minimum income, which leads to many application denials. Acquiring citizenship for people who have lived in the country for years and have developed strong ties with it, should not depend on economic factors”.

In Greece in 2023, 4,931 decisions for naturalisation of migrants were issued (latest available data from the General Secretariat for Citizenship), of which 3,515 (71.28%) were positive. The majority of them (73.88%) concerned immigrants from Albania. However, three out of ten applications (1,416 in number) for citizenship were rejected.

Strangers in their own land

There are also thousands of pending citizenship applications in Greece in the case of second-generation immigrants, reaching 18,822 at the end of March 2022 (latest available data), with delays in the processing of applications exceeding four years.

In this case, citizenship is granted, at the request of the parents, either to minor children born in the country and enrolled in the first grade of primary school (strict conditions apply regarding the status and years of residence of their parents in the country), or to minor children who have completed nine grades of primary and secondary education in a Greek school or six grades of secondary education or have a high school diploma and a higher education degree. 

In 2023 the acceptance rate of second generation citizenship applications was 97.3% (7,514 positive decisions), in 2022 98.38% (6,867) and in 2021 97.03% (5,154).

In 2022, Italy and Spain were the two European countries with the highest total number of naturalisations (213,716 and 181,581 respectively) according to Eurostat. However, almost a third of these involve people born there. The proportion is similar in Austria (32.69%), but higher in Greece (53.93%), where more than half of the 12,733 people granted citizenship were born here.

The laws of EU member states tend to favour citizenship by descent (jus sanguinis) rather than by place of birth (jus soli), but several countries allow people born there to become citizens regardless of their parents’ nationality in special cases.

Five countries automatically grant citizenship to people born there to foreign parents who meet certain conditions, according to the Global Citizenship Observatory (Globalcit). Portugal offers citizenship to children born there whose foreign parents have lived there for a year. Ireland does so after three years. Germany does it after five years, from June 2024, while Luxembourg and France automatically grant citizenship to people born there who can prove they have lived in the country for 5 years when they turn 18. In France, more than a quarter of the approximately 114,500 naturalizations in 2022 involved children aged 13 to 17 whose parents filed an application for their naturalisation, despite the provision for automatic citizenship at age 18.

In contrast, fifteen other EU countries do not allow the automatic naturalisation of children born there to foreign parents, but offer simplified procedures, such as reducing the time required for prior legal residence. There is no common rule: while in Spain, parents of children born in the country can apply for their child’s citizenship after one year of legal residence, in Italy they cannot apply until the child turns 18. Sweden requires three years of residence, not only for children born there, but for all minors residing in the country, regardless of their place of birth.

In all these countries, the first barrier to naturalisation is the acquisition of legal residence. “When children are born to parents who are in an irregular situation, they are also in an irregular situation,” explains Diego Fernández-Maldonado, a migration lawyer for the civil society organisation Caritas in Madrid, Spain. Economist Christina Gathmann of the Luxembourg Institute for Socio-Economic Research, calls it a “missed opportunity” that most countries do not recognise birthright citizenship for children of foreign parents: “Europe is falling behind or not thinking about the benefits, because very few countries in Europe have birthright citizenship.”

Stateless and deprived of rights

There is another category of people that nobody talks about. It concerns at least 381,000 foreigners, according to UNHCR figures, living in the EU without official citizenship, a situation that forces them to live as invisible people without basic rights.

Many stateless people come from states that have disappeared or may have been displaced by war or for other reasons. Others have no nationality, because of gaps in the laws of their country of birth: they may be the children of stateless persons or of people whose countries do not recognise as citizens the children born to their citizens abroad. Some people are stateless because the country where they live does not recognise their country of origin as a state, as in much of the European Union (EU) for people from Palestine or Western Sahara.

In Sweden the number of recognised stateless persons increased from 5,300 in 2005, the first year with available data, to 42,511 in 2022. In Greece, the number of stateless persons reached 4,488 in 2022, exactly the same as in 2021.

Since the middle of the last century, two UN conventions have aimed to guarantee minimum rights for stateless persons. First, the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, which defines which people fall into this category and requires signatory countries to provide them with access to basic rights that are at least the same as those enjoyed by legally resident foreigners. 

Then there is the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which limits the requirements that stateless persons must meet to obtain a nationality. However, France, Greece and Slovenia have not yet ratified the 1961 Convention, and Cyprus, Estonia and Poland have not even acceded to the 1954 Convention, according to the latest report on statelessness by the European Migration Network (EMN), an EU-funded intergovernmental organisation. 

In 2022, according to the latest Eurostat data, the 27 EU countries granted citizenship to a total of 7,296 stateless persons. As of 2013, the first year for which data is available, at least 67,600 stateless persons were granted citizenship, with more than half in Sweden.

Only 18 countries have simplified access to citizenship for stateless people, according to Globalcit. The process, however, varies from country to country and facilitations are not always provided. Ireland does not require stateless persons to have lived in the country for a certain period of time. In Greece, if a stateless person has lived in the country for 3 years, they can apply for citizenship. Belgium reduces the residence requirement from 5 years to 2 years, while 5 years of residence is also the criterion in Germany. Nine other EU countries, including Spain, Portugal and Romania, do not facilitate the acquisition of citizenship for stateless persons.

All EU countries, except Cyprus and Romania, grant citizenship to people born in the country who would otherwise be stateless. In Greece, children born to stateless parents acquire Greek citizenship if they are born in the country.

More obstacles on the path to citizenship

Citizenship acquisition is in any case the only status that recognises the holder as an equal member of society, giving him/her equal access to rights, but also a sense of security that there is no scenario of returning to the country of origin.

At a time when far-right forces are dragging European rulers towards tightening migration policy, it is certain that the challenges of acquiring citizenship will increase in member states. In Greece, the recent landmark decision of the Council of the State, which terminates Turkey’s recognition as a safe third country for refugees of five nationalities (Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Somalia), is expected to increase pressure on an already overburdened administration where, without realistic and systematic solutions, the problems of delays in residence permits and citizenship, instead of being corrected, will worsen, leaving thousands of people in limbo. 

*The cross-border data investigation was conducted as part of the European Data Journalism Network (EDJNet).

The project was coordinated by the Spanish journalism group Civio, with the participation of the following newsrooms: Deutsche Welle (Germany), Noteworthy (Ireland), OBCT (Italy), Dennik N (Slovakia) and MIIR (Greece).

To read more on the methodology of the investigation, please check the boxes on methodology at the end of Civio’s reports: here, here and here. 

Research/text: Kostas Zafeiropoulos, Nikos Morfonios, Janine Louloudi (MIIR)

Data Analysis – Visualizations: Corina Petridi

Illustration: Louiza Karageorgiou 

On the 15th of December 2022 the European Medicines Agency announced that almost every EU country was facing medical replenishment gaps. It was known that a harsh winter was ahead for European countries facing both the Covid 19 pandemic and other seasonal viruses that were testing their health systems anew. However, what actually happened this year surpassed any forecast.

‘’To be honest, what took place this winter was that European countries were taken by surprise with such a large mismatch between supply and demand, especially for antibiotics’’, Steffen Thirstrup admits to MIIR – Health Head of EMA (European Medicines Agency), which is the competent body that guarantees the scientific assessment, supervision and monitoring for medicines safety in the EU.

From 2000 to 2018 there has been a 20-fold increase in recorded drug shortages in Europe. It’s like a disease that gets worse every year without -yet- a cure. The war in Ukraine and the energy crisis were used as a convenient excuse in various countries for political leaders to attempt to cover reality. But the problem seems to have other, timeless causes.

According to the latest 2022 European Pharmaceutical Union (PGEU) report, all EU countries that responded to the survey (including pharmaceutical chambers and pharmacy associations of 29 countries in the European region) experienced drug shortages in pharmacies in the last 12 months. The majority of countries reported that the situation worsened compared to the previous 12 months (75.86%) or remained the same (24.14%). No country recorded an improvement.

‘’Medicines shortages are increasing in Europe and have a huge negative impact on patients. They occur across all healthcare settings and involve both essential life-saving medicines and very commonly used medicines. Community pharmacists are very concerned about this phenomenon, which can compromise patients’ health. Moreover, pharmacies and pharmacists invest a lot of resources dealing with shortages which constitutes not only a financial burden, but also a loss of opportunity to spend time with other patient-centered tasks and to improve the quality of care”, Ilaria Pasarani,  General Secretary of PGEU, tells MIIR. On average, each pharmacy in the European Union spends 6.3 hours a week looking for missing medicines. In some countries this number reaches 20 hours per week.

‘’At present the situation is that most European countries are still reporting shortages. This is observed in 28 out of the 30 countries of the European Economic Area. The result would have been the same if you had also asked me two weeks ago,’’ EMA’s Steffen Thirstrup  points out to MIIR.

Nevertheless, which countries record the greatest drug shortages in recent years? Are the data reliable? What are the real reasons and why are we increasingly unable to find the medicines prescribed by our doctor in pharmacies? Which categories of drugs, which active substances are missing, and above all, why are they missing? The answers are not unequivocal, they are often difficult to find and they are not always common for all countries.

Inhomogeneity in records

At a pan-European level there is not yet a homogenized database recording drug shortages -i.e. in the same language- with data that can be seen in real time. There is not even a definitive European agreement on how a shortage is defined. Several European states have adopted the definition of the European Medicines Agency (EMA, 2019): “A shortage of a medicine for human or veterinary use occurs when the supply does not meet the demand at national level”.

Assessments for the actual duration of medicinal shortages are often difficult to be determined, precisely because of the gaps and inconsistencies in national medical association registries. Many listings do not even provide an (assessed) expiration date for each shortage. Most European countries have only started collecting standardized information on shortages in the last five years. There are also notable differences in the obligations surrounding the reporting of shortages. For example, in Denmark notifications are made only for “severe” shortages, while in Sweden only shortages with an expected duration of more than three weeks are required for notification by the system.

There are countries that do not even provide a registration website, while in others the database includes in parallel human, hospital, veterinary and vaccine medicines. Furthermore, not all countries publish their data in the same way. For example, the Greek National Organization for Medicines (EOF) doesn’t publish the shortages annually, doesn’t mention the classification of drugs, and does not systematically provide data about the duration of a shortage. EU member states are also far from harmonizing standards for recording and reporting shortages, a fact which hinders information-sharing and comparative analysis between countries. 

We asked the European Medicines Agency (EMA) whether it keeps aggregated data for all EU countries, but the answer was negative. Instead, the EMA referred us to the websites of the national medicine’s registries. 

‘’Some states have a very detailed network of information collection from community pharmacies, and from hospital pharmacies. But not everyone has it to the same degree. Some states have sophisticated IT systems to look at supply and demand, and can therefore respond much more quickly”, EMA’s Steffen Thirstrup explains, hoping this gap will be bridged in the future.

In an attempt to partially fill this information gap, MIIR together with collaborating media teams from EDJNET spent a three month period looking for data and managed to create an -as homogeneous as possible- updated database on drug shortages in Europe. We recorded 22,107 different entries over a five-year period (2018-2023) in a total of 9 European countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Greece, Romania, Austria, Belgium), from which it was possible to gather reliable data, either by extracting data from published statistics in the national medicine’s associations or by submitting data requests. In many of the above countries, we traced the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification, the marketing authorisation holder, the starting & ending date of the shortage and reasons for it being taken off circulation. 

Key Conclusions

From the total of the 9 aforementioned countries over the last five years (2018-2023), when adding up the new shortages of each year, it appears that Italy cumulatively registers the most shortages in absolute number (10,843) for human medicines, quite far from the second Czech Republic (2,699) and the third Germany (2,355). Lastly, Greece (389) is the country with the fewest records of shortages in absolute numbers.

Accordingly, 371 vaccine shortages were recorded in the countries under review in the period 2018-2023, with Italy leading (144 vaccine shortages), followed by Germany (102) and the Czech Republic (57). Belgium recorded the fewest shortages (8).

Nevertheless, the absolute number of medicines and vaccines in short supply is not always the best way to draw safe conclusions, given that not all countries keep record of their stocks with the same consistency and the same criteria. In addition, these are different reference populations, countries with different levels of demand, while the different pharmaceutical import-export balance must also be taken into account. 

The safest recording indicator that best describes the situation in each country is the duration of a shortage. In order to find the average duration of shortages in the European countries that we examined, we excluded extreme values ​​by calculating the median. Of the 22,107 drug entries we processed in total, we had data on shortages’ duration for 16,945.  Based on these, the European average duration of shortages is 94 days, meaning that it takes about three months for a drug to be back on the market. 

From the analysis MIIR conducted on the data collected, it appears that Greece has the longest median duration of shortages (130 days), followed by Germany (120 days) and Belgium (103 days). The Czech Republic may have been second in absolute numbers of shortages, but it registers the shortest amount of time with drugs in shortage (41 days).

The European average of vaccine shortages, again excluding extremes, amounts to 84 days, less than that for medicines.
For vaccines, the longest median duration of shortages is traced accordingly in Italy (111 days), Germany (68 days) and the Czech Republic (66).

The most comprehensive study carried out in recent years on medicine shortages was that of the Technopolis Group consultancy on behalf of the EU (Future-proofing pharmaceutical legislation – study on medicine shortages), which was published in December 2021. In that research, the Netherlands and Portugal turned out to be the “champions” of medicines in shortage in 2019 (over 1600 different drug shortages). In contrast, that year Austria, Croatia, Iceland and Greece recorded fewer than 100 shortages, relating to 60 or less different medicines. 

The same survey ascertained that the average duration across all shortages notices was 137 days and that 66% of all shortages were resolved within the first three months. The minimum duration of the shortage was one day, the maximum duration was about 13.5 years (!) and is related to amoxicillin which was in short supply in Spain from September 2005 until March 2019. Amoxicillin is still today among active substances that are missing mostly from the European market. However, it is noted that in all 9 countries for which data was collected by MIIR, very significant increases in shortages are recorded in 2022 compared to the previous year.

The largest percentage increase in the absolute number of drug shortages from 2021 to 2022 is recorded in Greece, which is due to the possible under-reporting by the Greek National Organisation for Medicines (EOF) or the non-declarations of the actual shortages. Pharmaceutical associations in Greece complain that the real shortages are much more than those declared by EOF.

“The shortages are neither 80 nor 130. They start from 400 and upwards. This is the image I have from running a pharmacy; I don’t care what EOF tells me. I find it reasonable for any government not to want to be exposed. If I were in the position of the respective government, I would do the same. I would call the EOF president and tell him to declare that we have at most 100 shortages. I don’t think you can have an objective view from EOF, its presidents are always appointed by the respective government,” says Konstantinos Lourantos, who has been the president of the Pharmaceutical Association of Attica for 27 years.

For the needs of this report we contacted and repeatedly sent written questions to the president of the Greek National Registry, D. Filippou, without receiving any answer.

Reasons of shortages 

According to the MIIR analysis, in a total of 6 countries (Germany, Spain, Greece, Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic), the most drugs in shortage are those related to the neural system (1718 drugs, 19.03% of the total), such as anesthetics, psychotropics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, antiepileptics, antiparkinsonian drugs, etc.). In second place we find cardiovascular drugs (1307, 14.48% of all shortages) and in third place the anti-infectives for systemic use – antibiotics (1126 drugs, 12.47% of all). On the contrary, almost zero shortages are recorded in the same sample in the category of antiparasitic, insecticides and insect repellents.

Τhe latest report of the European Pharmaceutical Union PGEU (2022) for all European countries offered similar conclusions, according to which cardiovascular drugs were omitted in most countries (82.76%), followed by drugs for the nervous system and anti-infectives for systemic use – antibiotics (79.31%) and drugs for the respiratory system (75.86%).

In that survey almost all responding countries reported that drug shortages cause distress and suffering to patients (93.10%), discontinuation of treatments (89.66% of countries), increased co-payments as a result of more expensive and alternative solutions that are not reimbursed by the state (72.41%), but also fewer effective treatments (58.62%).

“I have been searching for 8 months and have not been able to find my medicine. The pharmacists tell me to be patient, it may come but we don’t know when”, 25-year-old Eleftheria, who suffers from a rare disease, tells MIIR. “They don’t even give me an explanation as to the reason why it suddenly stopped being available, all I hear is that this medicine is imported and that the multinational company that produces it hasn’t sent it,” she adds. As a substitute she takes another drug that does not fully cover her for the condition, and on the advice of her endocrinologist she has adjusted her diet to make up for the substances she lacks. She works as a babysitter in homes taking care of young children. “Especially this winter, I have been told by parents that not only simple medicines, respiratory and antibiotics for viruses are not easy to find, but even a simple serum,” she says.

The impact of Covid- 19

All researches converge that the problem is growing and concerns millions of patients on the European continent. “During the pandemic, but also in the post-pandemic era, with the post-COVID syndrome to have affected a large part of the population, the need for medicines and treatments increased. This fact led to an increase, to a certain extent, of the shortages of medicines”, underlined  Ioulia Tseti, CEO of the Tsetis Pharmaceutical Group of Companies and general secretary of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV).

But this explanation is not enough. As she explains, “the problems of the supply chain and the dependence of the European Union countries on raw materials from third countries, made the problem even more explosive. As well as the fact that countries such as India and China banned the export of raw materials for their own needs – this also aggravated the problem. And it is known that when raw materials are scarce, the price is high. We must not forget that the shortage of raw materials and the increase in energy costs were reinforced by the war in Ukraine, as the (once) rich and sufficient grain silo of Ukraine is a raw material for medicine production. Unfortunately, Europe is dependent on third countries and at some point, it must become independent, acquire sufficiency and self-sufficiency in raw materials.”

The war is not the only one to blame…

The root causes of the problem are generally the result of different economic, structural or regulatory causes, Ilaria Passarani, general secretary of the PGEU, underlines at MIIR. She herself summarizes these as follows:

“o   the increasingly globalized nature of pharmaceutical manufacturing, including Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), with production concentrated in fewer sites distributed around the world;

o   Shifts in demand, resulting from longer term factors such as demographic change, but also short-term factors such as tendering of medicines leading to difficulties in providing sufficient quantities of medicines for some markets;

o   Pricing strategies, both low and high, and regulatory changes that in some cases may have an impact on supply;

o   the imposition of fixed quotas of medicines by the pharmaceutical industry, often not sufficient in relation to patients’ actual needs;

o   the removal of the traditional role of the full line wholesalers as a result of Direct to Pharmacy (DTP) schemes in some markets;

o   the abolition and ineffectiveness of public service obligation/minimum national stock keeping requirements in some countries;

• the lack of priority given to smaller markets;
• The effects of the European internal market dynamics (e.g., exports).”

Dependance and friction point

As it turns out, at European level the over-reliance on a small number of suppliers for active pharmaceutical ingredients and other raw materials has made it difficult for manufacturers to meet current demand. China and India together account for more than 60% of the world’s supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients in 2020. Parallel exports are often seen by pharmacists and the pharmaceutical industry as part of the problem.

“It is a fact that parallel exports magnify the problem as the more expensive prices of the same products in European countries push pharmacies to export in order to take advantage of their price difference and, by extension, increase their profitability”, Ioulia Tseti, CEO of the Tsetis Pharmaceutical Group of Companies, tells MIIR. 

At the same time, however, at the European level, pharmaceutical companies seem to have reduced the stocks they keep in their warehouses. Thus, when a problem occurs in a manufacturing plant, the stocks are not sufficient to meet the needs until the problem is overcome and drug production returns to normal.

“Parallel exports” are a challenging point  between pharmaceutical manufacturers and drug dealers, since through them the pharmacies get a part of the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. For this reason, the multinational pharmaceutical companies strictly control the quantities they give to the domestic pharmacies, in order to limit the chances of exporting their products and the loss of profits in developed markets with high prices. All of this encourages any pharmacists who can obtain drugs directly from the companies to do so, even though this happens at an extremely slow pace.

But what is Europe doing to deal with a problem that looks like a difficult balancing act in an industry with huge competing interests? Within the next few weeks, the European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakidou will submit the long-awaited proposals for the revision of the pharmaceutical regulations, after a long period of dialogue with the pharmaceutical industry, the relevant government authorities, health professionals, the academic community and representatives of patients. 

“This dialogue and resulting policy analysis showed that shortages of medicines have become a systemic challenge with numerous vulnerabilities, including the increased complexity and specialisation of supply chains, the lack of geographical diversification of sourcing for certain products and perceived regulatory complexity”, a Commission spokesperson admits to MIIR, adding that the upcoming bill will include “stricter procurement obligations, timely notification of shortages and withdrawals and enhanced transparency of stocks”.

* Read the second part of the MIIR investigation: Parallel exports, the EOF and the Greek Statistics of drug shortages.

Photo: The spread of the deadly Mati fire in 2018, as it was simulated by the IRIS 2.0 rapid response forecast system.- Source: Meteo.gr, 2021

In the space of just 13 days in July 2023, 470,000 acres of Greek forest were burnt to ashes. Greece’s state machinery is proving inadequate to deal with extreme weather phenomena. In Rhodes, 15% of the entire island was ravaged in the worst fire in decades. From 1 January to 1 August 2023, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), a total of 550,000 hectares were burnt in the 22 largest forest fires. This is more than four times the average amount of land burnt in the years 2006-2022.

In an earlier survey by MIIR in collaboration with WWF on the economics of forest-fire protection we showed that, for the period 2016-2020, only 16.05% of public funds for fire protection were spent on fire prevention. Most, 83.95%, was spent on fire suppression. This ratio has not changed significantly since then: the Greek state has continued to invest in suppression instead of prevention. Another major problem can be found in the state’s inadequate use of scientific data during the fire season.

A typical case is the notorious fire-risk forecast map, which is published daily at 12.30pm by the General Secretariat of Civil Protection, in a rather opaque manner. This map is reproduced by all the media and forms the basis of the national Fire Service’s operational planning. It started to be used in 2003 and is published daily from 1 June to 31 October each year, under the purview of the Civil Protection. However, for twenty years now, none of the experts has known exactly what data and scientific methodology is used to produce this map.

Photo: The Civil Protection’s fire risk forecast map for 18 July, the day the huge fire broke out in Rhodes. The risk level for the island and the rest of the Dodecanese region was placed in the middle of the scale, which is classified as “high”. – Source: Ministry of Climate and Civil Protection.

 Intuition instead of data

“The map circulated by the Civil Protection, whose derivation we do not know, has no scientific sources, does not mention how the different categories are regulated, nor what it takes into account. My assessment is that the Civil Protection map comes out on the basis of simple intuition,” says Kostas Lagovardos, meteorologist and research director at the National Observatory of Athens.

The map’s first drawback, according to experts, is this lack of clarity about the exact scientific data used.

The main problem, however, is that it is issued once a day (covering the next 24 hours) and so does not take into account the very frequent variations in weather conditions during the day. As confirmed in a circular of the Civil Protection, once the map is issued, it does not change in any way.

 Photo: Excerpt from the Circular of the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection on the issue
daily Fire Risk Prediction Map from the G.G.P.P. during the 2023 fire season.

Andrianos Gourbatsis, a lieutenant-general and former deputy chief of the Fire Service, explains: “This is a big mistake, because the meteorological data may get worse, it may get better, so how is it possible not to change the map? What if you issue a hazard index of 3 for tomorrow, and suddenly in the evening the wind comes in, the temperature drops and the hazard becomes 5? This is the biggest disadvantage. There is another issue: the people who issue the map every noon then proceed to get off work, they go home, they do not follow the meteorological data of the National Weather Service.”

Another shortcoming of the map is that it treats entire regions, prefectures and other subdivisions as single units, without taking into account their different climatic conditions as pertaining to fire.

Kostas Lagovardos explains: “On the map, every region has one colour, which has no bearing on reality. For example, the winds in southern Crete are much stronger and have no relation to the winds in northern Crete. So in heavy weather, which is a typical summer event, you have a huge difference in the pyro-meteorological situation within the same prefecture. You can’t have entire regions having the same level of alert everywhere.” This means a dispersal of the firefighting forces on the ground, with all the devastation that might result.

After all, this fire-risk map is directly connected to the operational plan for fighting fires.

In the catastrophic fire in Mati in 2008 (which killed 102 people), the fire-risk map indicated a level of 4 (the maximum is 5). Andrianos Gourbatsis, who is also knowledgeable about the fires in Mati (2018) and Varibobi (2021), elaborates: “The conditions were for an index of 5 at the time. With an index of 4, the Fire Service’s state of readiness was not the maximum. If it had been 5, the Fire Service would have brought out an additional 25 units, from the 86 it had, while more fire stations would have been staffed for more hours, i.e. people would have been more ready.”

The Civil Protection’s Fire Risk Forecast Map for 23 July 2018, the day the deadly fire broke out in Mati. Source: Ministry of Climate and Civil Protection.

In the catastrophic fire in Mati in 2008 (which killed 102 people), the fire-risk map indicated a level of 4 (the maximum is 5). Andrianos Gourbatsis, who is also knowledgeable about the fires in Mati (2018) and Varibobi (2021), elaborates: “The conditions were for an index of 5 at the time. With an index of 4, the Fire Service’s state of readiness was not the maximum. If it had been 5, the Fire Service would have brought out an additional 25 units, from the 86 it had, while more fire stations would have been staffed for more hours, i.e. people would have been more ready.”

When there is a category 4 or 5 risk in an area, the Fire Service must effect an aerial surveillance. If the patrol sees a fire, the Fire Service must intervene immediately. In the catastrophic fire in Varibobi in the summer of 2021, two Air-Tractors were patrolling the area from 11 am because of the danger index. Gourbatsis notes that “Mr Hardalias [deputy minister for civil protection at the time] gave an order for them to land at 13.00 and stand by ‘if needed’. The fire in Varypobi subsequently broke out a kilometre from the airport. The planes had been on standby for 20 minutes, and precious time was lost as they got back in the air.”

Civil Protection ignoring the National Observatory

Phoebus Theodorou was for years the person who signed off on the maps of the General Secretariat of Civil Protection. He is a forester, not a meteorologist. He retired some time ago, but according to MIIR’s information, he remains an advisor to the Ministry of Climate and Civil Protection and continues to be involved in the publication of the disputed map. It is no longer approved by him, but by the scientific team at the Civil Protection secretariat. The individuals who make up this team have not been identified.

Andrianos Gourbatsis argues that “Civil Protection is stuck with the charter that was issued in 1995 when the service started. A lot of things need to change. On the weekend, these Civil Protection officials are at home, yet they still issue a map. This is not serious. They check EFFIS data every day, they see where it ‘blackens’ and issue the map accordingly”. Since the 2000s, as deputy chief of the Greek fire service, he has been asking politicians to have the map issued instead by Greece’s meteorological agency, EMY. His suggestion has gone unheeded and EMY is now doing even less work than before. It used to issue a special daily map of the conditions in the burnt areas.

Phoebus Theodorou, the official formerly in charge of issuing the Civil Protection maps, has claimed (GrTimes.gr, 08/06/2021) that they are based on the Forest Fire Weather Index (FFWI) of the Canadian Forest Service, as well as other geographic information systems and software. The National Observatory of Athens refutes this assertion. Kostas Lagovardos, at the Observatory, is categoric: “It can’t be using the Canadian index, because if it did, it would produce the results that we do. Southern and northern Crete would almost never have the same hazard index when they have different scores of 4 and 5 on the Beaufort scale.”

We contacted Phoebus Theodorou in order to answer questions about this, but to no avail. In addition, we sent written questions to the General Secretariat of Civil Protection but received no response by the time this article was published.

At the moment, the most authoritative daily fire-risk map in Greece seems to be that of the National Observatory of Athens. It is based on the Canadian pyro-meteorological index and takes into account temperature, humidity, wind, drought, how many days it has not rained, in order to produce a number to quantify risk. It offers a better analysis than the corresponding Civil Protection map, since it reaches a 2×2 km level of resolution in each region of the country. However, the fire service – at least officially – bases its planning on the Civil Protection map.

Vassiliki Kotroni, director of research at the Athens Observatory, comments that “we don’t know how the Observatory data is used by the General Secretariat for Civil Protection. We do know that our weather monitoring uses a network of 550 weather stations that we operate throughout the country. Since this data is freely available, it is possible that the Civil Protection monitors our stations. But this is not based on a memorandum of understanding, on any formalised system that would oblige us to operate in a certain way. We are doing this without any obligations. In a properly organised country, things should be a little different.”

Dr Kotroni is the scientific director of the Observatory’s Meteo team, which has pioneered a mechanism to forecast the spread of fires. Called IRIS, the system is innovative at both Greek and European levels. It aims to facilitate rapid responses to active forest fires. Knowing the location and time of the start of a fire, the system can, within 20 minutes, provide a forecast of how the fire front will develop over the next few hours. Within half an hour, it can provide a forecast for the next 24 hours. The system takes into account both the meteorology and the changing weather conditions caused by the fire itself. In 2019-2020 it was successfully used in cooperation with the Civil Protection and the Fire Service in over 200 forest fires. However, for two years now, explains Dr Kotroni, “for reasons we do not know, the cooperation has faded away, and unfortunately since 2021 it has not been sought by the Civil Protection or the Fire Service”.

Although it was available, IRIS was not used during the major fires in Varibobi and Evia in 2021. In a post after the fire in Varibobi, Meteo.gr stressed that it had carried out an “ex-post forecast”, adding that “the forecast that IRIS 2.0 could have provided operationally if it had been requested is very close to the actual spread of the fire”. Today, the IRIS system is still being developed with the Athens Observatory’s own resources, without any involvement of the state. It was not used by the Civil Protection even during the catastrophic fires of July this year.

The video shows the spread of the Varybompi forest fire in 2021, as simulated vy the IRIS 2.0 rapid forecasting system. Source: Meteo.gr

This material is published in the context of the “FIRE-RES” project co-funded by the European Union (EU). The EU is in no way responsible for the information or views expressed within the framework of the project. Responsibility for the content lies solely with EDJNet. Go to the FIRE-RES page

By 27 December 2022, according to UNHCR  figures, 7,896,825 refugees from Ukraine had been registered in Europe, of which 4,885,650 had been granted temporary protection status.

As the EU automatically grants residence permits and visas to Ukrainian passport holders, Ukrainians are given priority for housing and social services. At the same time, however, as a recent New York Times report  showed, many of the remaining refugee camps and asylum seeker centres are being abandoned to their fate by European governments. The war in Ukraine has dramatically increased the number of asylum seekers in Europe, but has crowded out refugees from other war zones. Activists denounce the existence of a two-tier system, which is unfair to non-Ukrainian asylum seekers, who are presumed to be living in appalling conditions. In Berlin, limited refugee housing capacity has forced city officials to evict some of the Afghan refugees to make room for those arriving from Ukraine. In Brussels, asylum seekers are forced to spend the night on the street. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Belgian government to offer shelter to an asylum seeker from Equatorial Guinea who had been living on the street since July. In southern Germany, mayors are settling refugees in gyms and concert halls, while in the Netherlands the government faced legal action over inhumane detention conditions in refugee camps. A Dutch court ruled a few days ago in the first instance that the Dutch government must provide all refugees with care similar to that given to Ukrainian refugees.

In Greece, pushbacks at land and sea borders have become de facto government policy, according to the UNHCR and numerous humanitarian organisations (but not according to the government). Fortunately, arms were opened wide for Ukrainian refugees, with little in the way of racist or intolerant rhetoric. A small detail: the refugees are white, European, Orthodox Christians. And most importantly, they want to leave again.

Most of the people who started arriving in the country last spring were women and children. There were also some elderly people. It is the same picture in other European countries. Ukrainian men up to the age of 60 are, moreover, banned from leaving their country. Although there is no conscription at the moment, those of conscriptable age must remain in Ukraine, with the exception of men with three or more children. Those who chose Greece as a destination country did so mainly because of the significant Ukrainian community, where they might have had relatives and acquaintances. Most came by road and air via Poland, while others arrived via Romania by bus. Those in Mariupol and the eastern regions of the country went first to Georgia and from there came by plane. The last official count on 8 August reported that a total of 75,945 Ukrainians have fled to Greece since the beginning of the war, of whom 19,760 are children (up to 17 years old). The peak of the Ukrainian refugee wave in Greece did not occur in the first months of the war, but rather in July.

“Greece generously opened its doors to the Ukrainians. Anyone who wanted to come came without any problem at all. At this point I don’t think we will have any new wave of refugees,” says translator Olga Sapolayeva, who used to work at the Greek consulate in Mariupol.

Few, however, apply for asylum in Greece. In 2022, Greece recorded only one case of a Ukrainian who obtained international protection. Meanwhile 20,420 people have obtained temporary protection status for one year, which was due to expire in March 2023 but is now renewed for another year until March 2024. Of the 20,420 with temporary protection, just 212 were staying in shelters at the end of October. (125 in Elefsina and 87 in Serres).

At the same time, data collected by MIIR from the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum identified only 49 cases of Ukrainians who applied for and obtained subsidiary protection status in 2022 (24 in August, 10 in September and 15 in October). Subsidiary protection status has similar characteristics to temporary protection and the same duration of one year, but refugees tend to avoid it as they usually have to surrender their passports. Subsidiary protection is an international protection for people who seek asylum but do not qualify as refugees.

In the European Union, a person eligible for subsidiary protection status is defined as a third-country national or stateless person who would face a risk of serious harm if returned to his or her country of origin (torture, death penalty, degrading treatment, serious personal threat to life, etc.).

“Many times people who have been granted subsidiary protection are left without any passport. You hand over the passport and then they say, ‘go and get a certificate from your country saying that you are indeed a citizen of Afghanistan, for example, and that you should normally be issued a passport by the authorities of your country’. But Afghanistan, for example, does not issue passports. So a lot of people have found themselves stranded in Greece. Ukrainians choose temporary protection because of the passport and the fact that they want to go back,” says lawyer Hara Katsigiannis from the Greek Council for Refugees.

As our translator Olga Sapolayeva explains, many Ukrainians apply for housing – as they are entitled to it under the temporary-protection status – but they usually do not choose a state structure to stay in. The majority stay with relatives and friends in Greece, with a view to returning to Ukraine or moving to another European country. Most women seek work in the service sector, while many are working online at the jobs they already had. A few have become interpreters and mediators who help other Ukrainian women, while those who do not know Greek or English take care of children and the elderly.

“Clearly the Greek state treated the Ukrainians differently from other refugees. This is discriminatory treatment, this lack of equality between asylum seekers and applicants for temporary protection. But in Greece they attribute it to the European directive”, says X. Katsigiannis. “In essence it’s as if they are saying temporary protection is something ephemeral, it will all be over. Some [Ukrainians] get a social security number straight away, and a tax number, and access to work, while the others get rejection decisions from the Asylum Service and the Refugee Authority, especially based on the safe third country and safe countries of origin.”

With migratory flows being significantly lower in recent years due to illegal pushbacks on the islands, asylum claims are generally being processed faster than in the past. According to the Ministry of Immigration, the average processing time for applications submitted in 2022 is 40 days.

In June 2021, the Greek government included Turkey in the national list of safe third countries for asylum seekers whose countries of origin include Syria and Afghanistan. The move has been criticised by dozens of NGOs working on the refugee issue. A recent report by Human Rights Watch calls for the repeal of the measure, citing the fact that Turkish authorities arbitrarily arrested, detained and deported back to Syria hundreds of Syrian refugees, both men and boys, between February and July 2022.

Meanwhile, Greece continues to be the first stop for thousands of Afghans. After Ukrainians, they are the second largest group of asylum seekers in the EU and by far the largest in Greece, where more than 37,000 – over a third of the registered – had submitted asylum applications by the beginning of October. “While the Greek government has welcomed refugees from Ukraine, efficiently registering them, issuing legal documents and allowing immediate access to work, Afghans in Greece, along with other asylum seekers and refugees, continue to be isolated from the Greek society in which they seek to rebuild their lives,” Dimitra Kalogeropoulou, director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Greece, recently told The Guardian.

There are several problems with the list of so-called safe countries of origin. According to Article 87 of Greek Law 4636/2019, a country can be considered safe if the asylum applicant “does not invoke serious reasons to consider that the [applicant’s] country is not a safe country of origin for him/her”. The law began to be implemented in 2021. The list has since grown to include 17 countries, including Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Even Ukraine was originally included, but on 1 December 2022 the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum at last removed it from the list.

But how do you decide whether a country of origin is safe? “The director of the asylum service has a team of officials who basically say ‘I want you to find out everything about, for example, Senegal and write a report. Then the Minister of Immigration and Asylum and the Minister of Interior issue an opinion based on this research report,” the lawyer X. Katsigiannis explains to MIIR. If someone comes from such a country, in the interview they will have to rebut the presumption of safety, which is usually impossible. 99% of these decisions are negative. “A few days ago I tried a case, a trans woman from Morocco. They dismissed it. They didn’t even go into the process of addressing the case individually and thoroughly, they relied on the country’s status. And the rejection decisions are usually 3 lines,” says Katsigiani. Applicants do not know what the internal recommendation is and cannot defend themselves. None of this applies to Ukrainians, as they are granted temporary protection immediately.

“This is institutional racism. Refugees are divided into two categories according to their origin,” laments David Schmittke, spokesman for the Saxony Refugee Council in Dresden. Indeed, in the early months of the war in Ukraine, there were also reports of discrimination against foreign residents of Ukraine attempting to flee the country.

“There is a spirit of welcome and generosity towards Ukrainians, which I do not criticise at all. They deserve it. But I would love to see the same treatment applied to Syrian refugees,” Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Euronews.

In the view of Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Europeans should “learn lessons” from their experience of welcoming the displaced Ukrainians, and extend this welcome to other refugees at a time when humanitarian crises are growing worldwide: “Do not forget the others”.