Greece to legalise 15,000 Bangladeshis

• The EU country also greenlights recruiting 4,000 workers from BD every year

Greece has decided to legalise at least 15,000 undocumented Bangladeshis residing there and annually recruit at least 4,000 workers.  The Greek parliament approved the decision on Thursday, said Ashud Ahmed, Bangladesh’s Ambassador to Greece on Friday.

“The ambassador said that Greece agreed to this,” Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said. “An agreement has been signed that they’ll regularise 15,000-18,000 illegal immigrants living there.”

“They’ll also [recruit] 4,000-5,000 workers from here. Greece is the first European Union country to agree to something like this and that is great news for us.”

During a trip to Bangladesh in February, the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum Notis Mitarachi signed a five-year memorandum of understanding, or MoU, to recruit 4,000 Bangladeshi workers a year and regularise illegal immigrants.

According to the Embassy of Bangladesh in Athens, as many as 30,000 Bangladeshis live in Greece now, of whom 12,000 are legal.

Ashud said authorities will now focus on how the undocumented migrants will be registered, how they will apply and who will be eligible.

“We’ll need approval from the Cabinet Division as well. We might get it by the next week,” he said.

In February, the expatriates’ welfare ministry said those travelling under the new contract will receive five-year temporary work permits, chiefly for employment in the farm sector.

Based on discussions between the countries, the sectors will be expanded later. And the workers will have to return to the country after five years, it added.