According to the data presented by METAdrasi at the conference organized with the support of Family for Every Child, entitled “From Shadow to Safety: sustainable solutions for unaccompanied children through the perspective of Guardianship”, only half of the requests for family reunification of unaccompanied minors have been accepted by the country of destination.
Read the article by journalist Dimitris Angelidis in the newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton, here.
Read the full article translated in English, below.
Block on family reunification of unaccompanied minors
METAdrasi CONFERENCE: ONLY HALF OF THE REQUESTS HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE DESTINATION COUNTRY
By Dimitris Angelidis
Variations in the way other European states treat family reunification, both between countries and depending on the time period within the same country ● Since 2024, only 130 family reunifications have been completed to date and one third of the applications are pending ● Concerns by the Secretaries General for the continuation of European funding ● Successes and challenges for the new institution of Guardianship
30% to 40% of unaccompanied minors arriving in our country in the last decade have close relatives in other European countries and wish to go to live with them again as a family. But they are met with reluctance -if not refusal- by most European countries, which do their utmost to delay and ultimately sabotage the family reunification process.
According to the data presented by METAdrasi at the conference organized with the support of Family for Every Child at the National Gallery’s auditorium on Monday, entitled “From Shadow to Safety: sustainable solutions for unaccompanied children through the perspective of Guardianship”, only half of the requests for family reunification of unaccompanied minors have been accepted by the country of destination. This includes requests that were initially rejected but accepted after a review. A final negative reply has been given to 22% of requests, while 28% of requests are still being processed.
METAdrasi’s data reveal differences in the way other European countries deal with family reunification, both between countries and depending on the time period within the same country. In 2016-2017 there was an increase in refusals, then there was a stabilization and after 2020 there was again an increase in refusals. From 2024 to date only 130 family reunifications have been completed and one third of applications are pending.
European law
The reasons for the rejection are also interesting, since, as Lora Pappa, president and founder of the organization, noted, each country applies its own criteria and methods, depending on how it serves it each time and not based on the best interests of the child, as required by European law. For example, there are countries that require costly DNA tests, which are not always easy to carry out, or require certified and translated documents that increase costs and complicate the process. METAdrasi also records insufficiently reasoned refusals or requests for which there has been no response.
“The criteria each Member State sets for accepting family reunification have not been set,” Lora Pappa noted, adding that this ambiguity of criteria continues in the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum which will come into force in July 2026.
She stressed that speed and flexibility are needed for an effective model of European solidarity with the implementation of the new pact, especially in cases of significant increase in arrivals such as those seen in the last months. In particular, the reception system for unaccompanied minors in the structures of Samos and Malakasa has been paralysed, with hundreds of unaccompanied minors staying there for many weeks, even months, in order to complete the reception procedures in overcrowded conditions. The minors are staying outside the so-called safe zones of the sites in makeshift tents in corridors and public areas, without shoes, clothes and personal hygiene items as the available stocks have been exhausted.
On his part, the Secretary General for Migration Policy, Manos Logothetis, announced a more dynamic attitude of Greece in family reunification procedures. He also noted that in the reception procedure, priority will be given to the question of whether the newly arrived minors wish to be reunited with their families, so that the process can move forward. “We will enter into this procedure as provided for in the Dublin Regulation. The Dublin Regulation is not something for which Greece has to apologize forever. It can implement it more dynamically,” he said.
He noted that Greece is the only country that has submitted a separate national action plan for the implementation of the new pact on unaccompanied minors and that unaccompanied minors now have many different pillars of support in Greece. But he admitted that things are not working because of the pressure of the increase in arrivals. “We believed we would continue to deal with a normal number and we forgot what it was like in 2015, 2016 or 2017,” he said.
He also sounded the alarm about the possibility of continued funding of the programmes, noting that in Greece there is maximalism in the planning of the programmes. “We do not always succeed in serving the best interests of the child, because we often get stuck in the formality of things. The funding for the new pact is specific. So when we maximize, we will have difficulty in finding resources and we will lose the ability to support even the basic needs of people. It is an oxymoron to set double and triple standards in Greece compared to what is in place in European countries.”
In his statement, the Secretary General for Vulnerable People and Institutional Protection, Heracles Moskoff, pointed out that emphasis is often placed on the completeness and integrity of programmes as an institutional counterweight against the possible arbitrariness of unaccompanied minors in their dealings with the state, as in other states there is a different culture of dealing with unaccompanied minors that is pervasive in society and the state.
He also noted that the biggest problem today is how the ambitious and important structure created by the General Secretariat will survive in the coming years. “In the face of the difficulty and embarrassment that we often experience when we see a child attempting an informal flight or refusing to accept what we offer them, we need to be as resourceful as possible and as connected as possible to the anguish of this person, to their desire and to the best interests as they understand them, so that we can strengthen them. The goal of our policy should always be integration,” he noted.
The institution of Guardianship needs to be strengthened
Around 5,000 unaccompanied minors, 87% of the total number of unaccompanied minors who arrived in Greece in the last 15 months, have received the services of the new institution of Guardianship, which is being implemented since January 2024. In 2017, METAdrasi had succeeded in having the presence of Guardians next to Frontex officers at the entry points, in order to provide services from the very first moment at every stage of the procedure, correcting irregularities and errors.
In its current form, the Guardianship mandated person assumes a role close to that of a parent. They have custody of the minor, represent him or her in all dealings with the authorities, ensure that the minor is enrolled in school and has access to health care, arrange for the issuance of a social security card, support the minor in cases of violence, exploitation or discrimination, arrange for a lawyer, support family reunification procedures, and cooperate in placing the child in foster care.
