Greece is dealing with a backlog of applications for residence permits, affecting thousands of requests that remain pending. It is estimated that 75 per cent of these cases concern the Attica Decentralised Directorate.
According to data from the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum, a total of 273,900 pending residence permit applications, including renewal requests, were recorded in September. Compared to the same period in 2023, number of pending applications is up by 12 per cent, Schengen.News reports.
Approximately 90,139 of these residence permit applications, representing almost 33 per cent of the total, were submitted in 2023, indicating that most of the bottleneck is caused by pending applications filed during this year. Another 31,947 or 11.6 per cent originate from 2022.
Out of these, some 51,489 residence permit applications are related to employment – making it difficult for workers to come to Greece, which has been encountering labour shortages. The number of cases of family reunification, especially those with a Greek citizen, is also high.
Attica Directorate Enhanced Efforts to Increase Processing Time for Residence Permits
By the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum has worked harder to speed up the processing times for residence permits, especially in the Attica Directorate.
One of the nationalities that will benefit the most from this measure is the Albanians. They represent 60 per cent of the new workers. Other nationalities on this list are Georgians and Pakistanis.
The more it takes to process residence permits, the greater the impact on the Greek economy will be, considering that foreign labour workers help Greece meet its market needs.
Only from the non-harvesting of olives due to a lack of labour force, Greece experiences economic losses estimated to reach €1.5 billion.
180,000 Agricultural Workers Needed in Greece, Exporters Call on Gov’t to Facilitate Entry Requirements
Greece has a shortage of 180,000 workers in agriculture, which is impacting the country’s economy. For this reason, exporters in Greece have urged the authorities to streamline the recruitment of foreign land workers.
In 2023, the production of green olives dropped by 30 per cent due to labour shortages, resulting in nearly €27 million losses in agriculture.
By the half of 2024, Greece had received 14,000 applications for work residence permits – a number that authorities anticipated would surpass 30,000.
For 2023 and 2024, some 147,926 residence permits will be granted to non-EU workers, which will be allocated across 13 regions in Greece, as the lack of workers is a common issue all throughout the country.
Source: https://schengen.news/greece-over-270000-residence-permit-applications-are-still-pending/
