Athens News Agency: News in English, 05-11-14

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Greece now has 'integrated' policy on immigration

[01] Greece now has 'integrated' policy on immigration

Greece now had an integrated policy on immigration, since a bill prepared by Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos was passed by Parliament, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said on Monday.

"This mainly hinges on the fact that we know which immigrants come to Greece and for what purpose, that immigrants can fully exercise their rights, that they are insured and secure, while the procedures for the issue of residence permits have been simplified and delays reduced to a minimum, avoiding the intercession of any sort of middle-men," he added.

The spokesman pointed out that the immigration services had been housed in a new building in the central Athens district of Rouf and had up-to-date IT systems to solve procedural problems.

He also stressed the creation of the new category of 'long-term residents' who had lived in Greece for more than five years and were on the verge of acquiring Greek nationality, if they so wished, under the updated national code voted by the government in 2004.

Asked whether the passage of the new law might be linked to the torching of 20 cars, Roussopoulos said the incident were probably not linked but did not rule out the possibility that certain parties might have attempted to incite violence along the lines of France in Greece.

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