(AFP) Dozens of groups helping asylum seekers in Greece risk being edged out in a government move to tighten what it calls “opaque” rules overseeing charities, sparking concern that crucial support will be cut.
Critics warn that the new registration regulations will downgrade services to thousands of vulnerable and traumatised people that were, in many cases, already barely adequate.
“We seek as much transparency as possible in the operation of NGOs, and of people working for, or cooperating, with them,” Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said in April.
Greece’s conservative government, which was voted in nearly a year ago and whose policy is to make the country a “less attractive” destination to migrants, says that new NGO registration rules are needed because the groups have run projects in the last four years “in their own way” under an “opaque” framework.
