Greeks are known to be extremely ethnocentric and therefore xenophobic. Majority of Greeks consider migrants as a threat to economy, to social and cultural life. According to a survey conducted by the National Center for Social Research (EKKE):
65% think that migrants harm the Greek economy
63% consider Greece has become a worse place to live because of migration
59% think that migrants get their jobs
59% think that migrants make greater use of health and welfare services than they amount they contribute to taxes
57% believe that Greece’s cultural life is degraded because of immigrants, and it did not get enriched.
One third of the respondents said the government should not be generous in granting the refugee status to those who ask for it.
44.4% believe that the government treats the migrants who arrived in the country with the recent migration wave ” a little” or “much better” than the natives.
29.2% said the government treats both groups “equally”, while 26.5% said the government treats migrants “a little” or “much worse”.
Particularly negative is the attitude of Greeks towards Muslims. Four out of ten respondents said there should be “no Muslim migrants in the country at all”, another four out of ten said “there should be very few.”
The survey was conducted among 827 Greeks above 15 years old residents of urban centers.
The survey results seem to have surprised the researchers. Speaking to Athens News Agency, one of the researcher, Aggelos Tramountanis said that “we see that the Greeks face migration as a threat on two levels: On the part of the economic and social situation of the country and in terms of identity, that is that migrants threaten the identity of the nation or their own.”
Tramountanis points out that “we expected that we will find these results mainly due to the economic crisis, because bibliography and research have found that when you have an economic crisis, unemployment and low wages that affects the reflexes, which increase the negative feelings against migrants “.
However, researchers were surprised by the intensity of the results, “as we saw that they consider migrants as a threat horizontally across all areas of economic, social and identity.” the researcher underlined.
The survey was conducted as part of a larger research project on “Inequalities in health in the immigrant population”, part of the MIGHEAL program, funded by the European Union. and conducted. The results were presented beginning of February in a conference on the issue.
Also 505 migrants were questioned in the context of the survey. However, KTG understands that the migrants were questioned on health issues.
In a survey conducted across Europe, by the UK Institute for International Relations “Chatham House”, 58% of Greeks had said that “the Muslim migration should stop.”
Unfortunately, I do not have the detailed survey at hand and therefore I wonder about the definition and the use of “migrants” in the survey. Did researchers distinguish between ‘refugees’ and ‘migrants’ who arrived after 2015 from Turkey and the regular ‘economic migrants ‘ who have been living in Greece in the last 10-15 years? Or were they all thrown in a bag tagged “migrants”?
Much to my knowledge those who arrived after 2015 from Turkey live in facilities, often away from the cities and have little or not access at all to jobs.
On the other hand, I am not surprised about some of the findings as there is a general view among the Greek conservative society that ‘migrants take jobs’.
Recently, an older lady at her 70’s, a regular church goer, told me that “migrants take our children’s jobs.” The lady has three children in aged 30-40, two of them are self-employed, the third works at the business of his sister. Stunned to hear this otherwise educated and clever woman claiming such a thing, I had to ask her “From which one of your children will the migrants take the job?” She looked at me irritated and probably equally stunned and muttered something in the direction “You know, these people close to the priest said….”
This is my strongest argument when I hear that migrants will take the jobs. The jobs the Greeks still refuse to do despite the high unemployment. Picking strawberries, for example. When a cousin complained once about her son’s long- time unemployment I innocently asked why he doesn’t go pick strawberries or other fruit. Seasonal work, bad paid, fit for ‘migrants’. She almost shouted at me that her son was a university graduate and could not do such kind of work.
Definitely, working in a cafeteria or as delivery boy for 2-3 euro per hour, no social security, consequently no taxes, has a much better status than a fruit picker. A super job in the black market economy. Only, that the labor conditions and the harm to economy is more or less the same as if it would be caused by a working migrant.
There are two things I can’t stand: hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness.
PS i was also just a ‘migrant’ when I went to Germany to study and did several part-time, bad paid jobs, in small factory facilities or in restaurants as dish-washer. I wasn’t that spoiled…
Who do you think picks up strawberries in good old Germoney? Krauts? Nope, Polish and Romanians. If unemployed get the order to do so they find a doctor, the “fakelaki” is good vibrations for their neighbourhoods and may be a bottle of the wine end of the year.
Beside this it’s really a tough job compared to delivery hero who sometimes also get tip – given that he’s a smart enough, although it’s more dangerous – and it’s also only seasonal plus often 12 hours a day, without a home to relax or clubs to go out in style.
So, lets complain about tens of thousands of Brits, Dutch, Krauts and Scandinavian students that work in tourism-sector.
Anyway, although it’s just a “survey” – to find 800 respondents interviewers had to ask 20.000 before who told’em “go, make surveys in hell!” – question remains, why not ask in the countryside?
Recently one big number in Crete said it’s no big thing with a few thousand refugees that are planned to get transferred to Crete in helping Eastern Aegean islands and coming to jobs the local economy would absorb’em easily.
So, if you want jobs for Greeks throw out the hippy-dropouts from abroad or these students, often not daring to learn language of hosting country also and just preparing for their careers instead of fighting for the revolution.
Hmm. I also wonder how well the survey was conducted — in terms of sampling, questions asked and the training of interviewers. It is very expensive to do good quality surveys, which is why surveys in all countries now are usually crap.
Also, when you ask survey questions, you need to do several things — which are very difficult. First, is that you need to avoid questions that elicit stock answers, so people do not even think before they reply. The second thing is that you need to ask about the same thing in at least three different ways, and see if the answers match up (triangulation). If they do, then the answers are probably reliable. I do wonder how well EKKE did this survey — and it is important. Judging from these results, you would expect much more support for Golden Toilet than seems to exist.
Speaking as a foreigner living most of the year in Greece, it seems to me that the root issue is one of ‘give and take’. There will always be movement of people and it is incumbent on all of us I believe to welcome migrants even if they are foreigners. On the other hand it is just as incumbent on migrants to assimilate into the way of life of the country in which they settle. What you do behind closed doors is up to you but if you choose to live in another country you have to change yourself to fit your new country. It is unreasonable to expect your new country to change to fit you.
Agree 100%.
i replied to this hypocritical nonsense, but for some reason KTG has not published it.
Only members of privileged classes can live part-time Greece, hopefully Northern Europe will expand welfare to be paid their citizens also abroad
Are you really that ethnocentric? I never really noticed that. I find Greek very pleasant towards foreigners. A Greek girl working in tourism told me last year that Greek could be a bit more hospitable towards tourists. But I understand, tourism is just a means to make a living. But again, I always felt welcome. But towards migrants that might be different.
Greeks hate competition: they hate it with a passion and do everything to remove it. Thus, tourists or guests are not competition and are treated well. Immigrants who bring money to Greece are tolerated, although there is an historical pattern of trying to cheat the foreigner of his/her money. But people who come to Greece to work, especially if they are more skilled than the Greek population, have many problems. They represent competition and potentially disrupt the political control over Greek society and economy. In other words, the structure of the Greek economy has always been shaped primarily by politics — as opposed to natural resources and human skills. High-skill immigrants challenge political dominance; low-skill immigrants potentially take very poor jobs away from low-skill Greeks, although there is still little evidence of this even after 6 years of economic crisis.
I totally agree with you on the subject….I came here with my family in 1980, my Greek husband had travelled before us to find accommodation…we were fine in the village we resdided in UNTIL some 5 years later we opened a tavern…being experienced too, we did so well, that was when the locals started to find reasons to not speak, to send messages, even to phone up with unkind remarks (nobody we knew) and call the police with false information that we didn’t have a licence (the police came so many times they became friends – honest!!)
Now, I am retired, am a widow and the tourist friends we made as customers in the taverna, still visit these shores, and so when I meet up with them I find a good taverna or cafeteria of persons who were always there for us as a family…and believe it or not the other unkind, nasty locals see me with people, call out to say hi and when I am alone ask me to send customers….the moral of the story…don’t take much notice they are sad people..as there are more decent ones than the odd few that are envious, jealous to the extent of harm to your feelings…love this country, I sell this country as in encourage many of my friends to visit…they all spend in the village, not taking their monies to other areas….its only fair.
But this sounds really old and was just normal f.i. on islands, locals – often divided in minimum two factions also – were not liking the “money-makers” that had business there and were only coming for the season from Salonika or Athens, all depending on how big the island was. Often it was dealing with weird situations that left’em powerless, like being dependent f.i. for fresh tomatoes coming with the ferry, because nobody had the time any more to produce enough or more than the family needed.
Hey! It’s the same stale rhetoric the American special interests use to try and promote Mexican migration here in the states. Wow, you guys really do dial it in. I was surprised to hear the old lady say that and could not believe the story was panning out in an anti migration manner. If this keeps up the rag I work for will fire me and I won’t be publishing anything, better change the narrative.
Yeh, well you can keep your ignorant Trumpian thoughts to yourself. Stop immigration into the USA and see how well that works out: you’ll lose all your cheap labour and will start cutting the wages of US citizens even more, in order to finance the corruption and bloated wealth of Trump and the other fat pigs of billionaire crooks.
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In the meantime, we’d prefer to keep Europe as the last hope for civilisation and humanity. It’s not going well so far, but at least we haven’t yet elected any narcissistic brain-damaged crooks as president or prime minister — only one or two stupid fascists, like Orban.
Your “Mexicans” are 80% Indios and they look much more American than you, will you please go home to Europe, it’s time for a Free America after European squatters’ full-scale terrorism since 1492 destroyed the whole continent and take your keen on nails stupid Flat-Earther hippie-god with you, American god is Manitou not Jesus Mohammed
Are Greeks xenophobic? nah, no more than the rest of the world population. They may be tax evaders, liers, cheeters and no good to their own word according to even Cato the elder, but xenophobic? Not really
Nobody was really making the case that Greeks are xenophobic. The point is that people in Greece have remained very calm over the last few years, considering the terrible problems with mass refugee inflows along with a small proportion of non-refugee illegal migrants. No other EU country has been so tolerant of these mass inflows, and we attributed this tolerance to memories of the 1922 refugee situation and a few other incidents such as the Nazis on Aegean islands.
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So, this research shows the Greek response as being not at all tolerant. That is all, really. As for Greek relations with foreigners: Greeks oscillate (on an almost daily basis) between xenomania and xenophobia. The average balance is roughly zero: that is, neither loving nor hating foreigners. That seems to me, to be about right.
As it’s (may be) has much more impact on their future, young people’s opinion regarding such issues is much more important and an actual survey asking them results in 92% positive