Desecuritization of Migration in Greece: Advancing “Flexicuritization”

Research on the Greek migration experience has shown that new concepts are necessary in order to describe both the weaknesses of the current response mechanisms (legislation, norms, values, public policy, human rights, etc.), and the need to formulate / identify more specific solutions to the problems induced by massive migration and refugee flows since 2015. Flexicuritization is such a concept. It has been introduced by Dimari (2021: 6, forthcoming) and can be defined as a flexible construct of security/desecurity, tackling both state security-centered concerns, as well as refugee/migrants’ security and well being, being also situated in a context of a compromise of state security with human security. Even though this strategy fits to serve short term concerns, such as the refugee crisis in Greece- with nevertheless more long-term implications -, yet, it needs considerable elaboration to address two fundamental issues. The first is the EU’s role and involvement in the desecuritization of the refugee crisis in Greece. This is a challenging task, as, to come up with a solution of accommodating different and asymmetric national interests of member states has, up to this point, proved impossible. The second fundamental issue is the need to build upon a “flexicuritization” strategy for the long term, that is to tackle the securitization of migration as a well routed phenomenon in the Greek case, which calls for the study of its political culture and its relation to security patterns. This concern sets out from current and past research that shows that the political culture of migration in Greece is a major driver for its successful securitization and is related to societal concerns and especially identity.