ABSTRACT
More than any other European Union (EU) Member State, Greece, in 2015, received an extraordinary number of arrivals, with the majority transiting to northern and western Europe. Since March 2016 and the EU-Turkey Statement the country has transformed into a destination for thousands of asylum seekers, posing a challenge to the Greek reception system, still in its infancy. The chapter examines the evolution of the reception system in Greece for asylum seekers in the period 2015–2018. The national reception system was and remains a centralised state-led system as regards decision-making. In contrast, services provision was decentralised to unprecedented levels to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and municipalities that stepped in to fill the gaps. The chapter discusses the role and relationship between state, non-state actors, and the local level. Through interviews with stakeholders involved in administering reception, the complexity of policy-making, and implementation are highlighted. Various initiatives were undertaken by municipalities and international organisations, while structural conflicts embedded in reception management (e.g., absence of legal mandate for local actors) both hindered but also at times facilitated the growth of informal relationships between state and non-state level, eventually producing a partial convergence of interests and a multilevel dynamic as regards the implementation of reception.
