Greece will speed up the procedure for obtaining residence permits for Albanian citizens to open the way for a large number of migrants to the labor market, Albanian media reported today.
This is another country promoting the legalization of illegal or legal migrants in Greece after Pakistan. The Ministry of Immigration and Asylum is assessing the possibilities of adapting the legislative framework and will then submit a proposal to the Assembly.
Under current law, migrants have to wait up to three years to renew their residence permits, and the large influx of migrants has left the system broken.
The biggest beneficiaries of the new changes will be Albanian migrants, who make up about 60% of all legal arrivals, followed by Georgians and Pakistanis. There are currently around 200,000 residence permit applications pending at Attica’s immigration offices, with an average waiting period of up to 3 years.
Besides legal migration reform, Greece is also working on new bilateral agreements with at least six countries, such as Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, India, Vietnam and the Philippinesto accept workers from these countries.
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