Unravelling the complexities of the migration and refugee question in Greece

The management of migration and refugee flows has remained an important issue in Greece over the last two decades. During the same period, the policies designed and implemented to manage the evolving flows have changed significantly. The "migration and refugee crisis" (2015) was an additional challenge to the harsh economic recession that hit Greece for a decade (2009-2017). Meanwhile, this crisis became a spectacle for Europe and beyond, and had an impact on migration across the continent. Although the political economy of migration is positively received in times of economic growth, the Greek public increasingly views migration as a "problem" that needs to be "solved" as the governance of migration and asylum continues to be heavily influenced by the EU's agenda of securitization and prevailing nationalist-populist narratives. The recent crisis in Ukraine has been met with better reflexes from the EU's migration and asylum policy, which offer protection to more than 4 million refugees. The aim of this chapter is to identify and discuss the challenges faced by the Greek state in view of the changing migration and refugee flows, and to critically discuss emerging asylum and refugee policies