and Administrative Measures. We are particularly grateful for their assistance, which they readily
offered and their excellent collaboration throughout the course of this project. We are also
particularly grateful to UNHCR Athens for their time and overall contribution. IOM Athens,
Medecins sans Frontieres and the Director of NGO Praxis also readily offered their assistance for
which we are grateful. Correspondence was also undertaken with the Ministry of Labour and
Social Welfare, the new Asylum Service, the First Reception Service the Frontex Office in Piraeus,
the Head of Amygdaleza Pre-Removal Centre, the Head of Elliniko Special Holding Facility and
the Head of the Central Special Holding Facility (Petrou Ralli). We are thankful for the assistance
and information they offered us. At an international level, contact was assumed with the
Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) in relation to the EEA Grants in Greece which
promptly provided us with the requested information, the Warsaw Frontex Heaquarters and the
DG Home Affairs of the European Commission.
In the context of our fieldwork we also visited three of Greece's largest detention centres:
Amygdaleza Pre-Removal Centre, Elliniko Special Holding Aliens Facility, Central (Petrou Ralli)
Special Holding Facility. In addition to fieldwork, an extended overview of primary sources was
undertaken: Parliamentary questions, Greece's annual reports before the European Refugee
Fund, the European Return Fund and the External Borders Fund, Frontex' financial reports, the
EEA Grants Memorandum and other EU documents.
The MIDAS project gathered and brought together a wide range of data and sought to provide a
comprehensive picture of the overall expenditures entailed in managing irregular migration in
Greece. In terms of analysis, its ambition is rather modest. We do not go as far as challenging
Greece's, and consequently the EU's policy objectives on irregular migration management;
rather, the aim has been from the beginning to take as a granted the current policy objectives
and review the manner in which the authorities seek to achieve them. Thus, the MIDAS
project solely explores the financial dimension of the Greek migration policy and seeks to put
forward policy recommendations in line with international human rights law that will benefit
both migrants and the host society. Methodologically, this entails cataloguing the existing
measures/operations/establishments, calculating their cost (where possible) and analysing their
effectiveness by focusing on direct costs against long-term and short-term outputs and
outcomes. Direct costs include the budget of each operational intervention and salaries of police
officers, among others.
One of our main objectives was to open a new strand of discussion and offer new information
and analysis to ‘feed’ the debate on the management of irregular migration, and its cost. We
hope this will prove a useful starting point and basis for future research in this field.
Contents of the Report
The first chapter outlines Greece's main strategy to tackle irregular migration during the period
2008-2013 as well as the main sources, from which Greece has been financing its policies. The
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