Keywords

1 Introduction

In January 2015, the radical left-wing party SYRIZA (Sinaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras [Coalition of the Radical Left]) came to power in collaboration with the small far-right nationalist party ANEL (Anexartiti Elines [Independent Greeks]). The new government’s policy approach to the large number of refugees and migrants arriving on the Greek Aegean islands (and later on the mainland) since the fall of 2014 was open and welcoming. This was partly for ideological reasons (they wanted to express their solidarity with refugees and migrants) and partly because the newly formed government did not yet have public administration experience in dealing with emerging crises of large scale. In 2015, the situation of Greek border controls and regulations could best be described as ambiguous. According to Rozakou (2017), the failure to apprehend migrants and the irregular bureaucratic processes were the result of conflicting practices among state officials, Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the government. This situation allowed for informal reception practices that encouraged the entry of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as economic migrants from Africa and other regions.

In 2015, 856,723 refugees crossed the sea borders with Turkey and settled in Lesvos, Samos, Chios and other Aegean islands (Papataxarchis, 2016). From 2014 till July 2020 a total number of 1,254,000 refugees and migrants entered Greece by both sea and land (UNHCR, 2020a). Their plan was to cross the country as soon as possible for the Northern Europe. In-country mobility and participation in relocation schemes were differentiated according to nationality (see Dimitriadi Chap. 11 in Dimitriadi, this volume). Large scale camps were set-up in the islands and the whole range of humanitarian aid was provided by grassroots solidarity groups, as well as by philanthropic organisations: open soup kitchens, shelters, health centres and social services (Cabot, 2018; Kanellopoulos et al., 2020; Oikonomakis, 2018; Parsanoglou, 2020).

This massive arrival of refugees occurred in the midst of the Greek economic crisis, which had begun in 2010 and officially lasted until August 2018, when the third economic adjustment programme ended. The impact of the economic crisis on the Greek economy and society was enormous. Overall, a quarter of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was lost. The rate of those at risk of poverty or social exclusion increased to 36% in 2014 (Ziomas et al., 2019) and the unemployment rate reached 28.7% in 2013 (Hellenic Statistical Authority, 2021, November). This situation has created a ‘wicked social problem’ in Greece, as public responses were partial and provisional, and ideological political solutions were unstable. The refugee problem had all the main characteristics of a ‘wicked social problem,’ namely complexity, uncertainty and divergence of stakeholders, as defined in the pivotal work of Rittel and Webber (1973) and recapitulated by Head (2019)Footnote 1: Complexity was based on the large number of refugees and the urgent basic needs that had to be met, as well as the cumbersome and lengthy administrative procedures for refugees coming from third countries with different political backgrounds. The uncertainty is related to the unknown number of new arrivals, their willingness to leave Greece and the ambiguity of the political stance of the European Union (EU) destination countries. The divergence of stakeholders lies in the large number of levels of governance (United Nations, European Union, national, local) and the mobilisation of a wide range of non-governmental organisations (foundations, humanitarian aid corps, charities, voluntary associations, etc.).

Public policy responses to ‘wicked problems’ cannot be readily analysed using the grand ‘rational’ theories of public policy making that explore and postulate different and distinct stages of policy making, e.g. policy agenda, formulation, adoption, implementation, evaluation (Anderson, 2014), or agenda setting, programming, implementation, and policy impact (Knoepfel et al., 2011), or structuring problems, predicting outcomes, prescribing action, monitoring outcomes, and evaluating performance (Dunn, 2015). On the contrary: addressing wicked problems calls for public officials to forge new ways in thinking, leading, managing and organizing that recognise the complexity of the issues and process, and that make new demands not only on their own organisations but also on other relevant actors (Head & Alford, 2015, p. 722).

This chapter analyses the main aspects of the policies adopted by the city government of Athens in 2015–2019 to respond to the ‘wicked problem’ created by the urgent and unprecedented situation of hosting thousands of refugees who had come from the islands with the hope of reaching Greece’s northern borders but ended up stuck in the city without clear prospects. The analysis reflects the author’s experience in the office of Vice Mayor for Social Solidarity, Welfare and Equality of the Municipality of Athens from 2014 to 2019. The sections that follow present the economic and political context at the time of the refugees’ arrival (Sect. 14.2), summarise the urgent policy responses in a xenophobic environment (Sect. 14.3) and analyse aspects of the organisational and financial innovation (Sect. 14.4). The last section (Sect. 14.5) presents new forms of collaboration at the level of governance and stakeholder participation.

2 The Construction of a ‘Wicked Problem’

With the major reform of local government in 2010 (Kallikratis reform), a large part of social competences was shifted from prefectures to municipalities. The new responsibilities of the municipalities included social benefits and social inclusion policies for the poor, the migrants and the uninsured. However, the shift of social policy to the local administrative level was not backed by the appropriate human and financial resources.Footnote 2 This coincided with the onset of the economic crisis, which severely affected social cohesion as the country faced austerity measures and the impoverishment of large segments of the population. In addition to direct cuts to state budgets, the austerity measures for the public sector included a complete hiring freeze, as one of the main goals of the budget consolidation plan was to reduce the number of state employees. Municipalities had to provide more social services with fewer staff and less funding, while the need for social solidarity increased dramatically.

The emergence of a large solidarity movement for disadvantaged, poor and vulnerable populations was an immediate response to the economic crisis and an important aid to local authorities in their efforts to meet the immediate basic needs of their residents. However, the solidarity actions for the disadvantaged served as an opportunity for the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to promote xenophobic attitudes towards migrants who had been living in the country since the 1990s.Footnote 3 The party’s high share in the Greek parliament (7% in the 2012 and 2015 elections) was closely related to the increasing racist reaction of locals against migrants who had ‘taken jobs away from Greeks.’

Ιn 2011, after 23 years of conservative governments, the city of Athens elected a centre-left government led by George Kaminis.Footnote 4 One of his first public actions was to ban a public soup event organised by Golden Dawn in Athens’ most central square. The event was aimed exclusively at Greeks and all ‘foreigners’ were banned from entering the public soup kitchen. The mayor’s reaction had a high symbolic value. He called it a ‘soup kitchen of hate,’ marking the strong political stance of the new authorities of Athens to protect free spaces and ensure free provision of goods and services to all residents.

Mayor Kaminis was re-elected in May 2014 for a second five-year term (until August 2019). In the first months of his second term, the first massive arrivals of refugees reached the City. With them came smugglers and all kinds of ‘intermediaries’ offering transport services to the country’s northern borders. The city of Athens was faced with situations like the following: In the most central square, Sintagma, hundreds of Syrians went on hunger strike, demanding ‘papers’ that would allow them to leave the country. In the largest city park, Pedion tu Areos, thousands of refugees camped out for weeks in 2015. In the large Victoria Square, tents with refugees could be seen until early 2016. In March 2016, the EU-Turkey Statement forced the formal closure of the Balkan route and thousands of refugees and migrants were stranded in Greece.

The ‘wicked problem’ for the city government was the temporary housing of thousands of refugees under the relocation scheme and later the social integration of asylum status holders. Social integration in a country that one would prefer to leave as soon as possible was a difficult task to begin with. Finding a job in a labour market where unemployment was 51% (Attica region)Footnote 5 and the income gap between the native and immigrant population reached 69%, the second highest in all OECD regions in 2017, was even more difficult, with over 18,000 refugees living in the city of Athens that year (OECD, 2018).

In the absence of a coherent national strategy for the management and/or integration of continuously arriving refugees (as documented by Tramountanis Chap. 13 in Tramountanis, this volume), the government of Athens had to improvise by designing and providing immediate social solidarity services, combating politically xenophobic reactions, overcoming obstacles to its operational capacity and expanding networks of collaboration with civil society.

3 Urgent Policy Responses in a Hostile Environment

The emergency nature of the problem facing the city of Athens pushed the authorities to make a quick and clear political decision: to provide basic goods and survival services to the newcomers (housing, food, schools, protection from violence, language learning), regardless of scarce human and financial resources or xenophobic reactions.Footnote 6

3.1 Surviving in Athens

In the summer of 2015, the first camp on the mainland was established in the area of Eleonas, part of the city of Athens. Initially, it housed 700 migrants and refugees. After its expansion to 37,000 square metres, it housed 2500 people, including a large number of children. Staff was provided by the Municipality of Athens and there were other arrangements for referrals to municipal services (schools, health centres, etc.). In addition, about 2000 refugees participating in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) relocation scheme (Emergency Support to Integration and Accommodation [ESTIA] programme) were temporarily housed by renting 320 apartments for two families each.

The Municipality provided all refugees with food and housing, medical care, both physical and mental and recreational facilities. In particular, refugees had access to the municipal health centres and the municipal shelter for battered women, as well as to free cultural events organised by OPANDA (Organismos Politismu Athlitismu ke Neoleas Dimu Athineon, [Organisation for Culture, Sports and Youth of the Municipality of Athens]). Additional social workers and psychologists were hired to provide counselling and support to the guests.Footnote 7 The municipality ensured free access to elementary schools for refugee children and resisted negative reactions from local residents. In addition, the municipal social services organised Greek and English courses, as well as training in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for adults. In 2017, a Blue Dot Child and Family Support Centre was established in a municipal building in the city centre, with a playground for children and an open space for meetings of migrant communities. The European project ‘Curing the Limbo’ developed and implemented a dynamic and innovative model aimed at bringing together locals and refugees in Athens neighbourhoods.

3.2 Xenophobic Environment

Xenophobic reactions were noted in surveys such as the one conducted by Dianeosis (Georgakopoulos, 2017), which found that 88.3% of respondents believed that the number of migrants in the country was excessive; 64.4% believed that the presence of migrants in the country increased crime, while 58% believed that the presence of migrants increased unemployment. In this context, exacerbated by the insecurity and unemployment resulting from the economic crisis, the city government faced reactions from some residents to most of the decisions regarding the survival and integration of refugees. Spontaneous reactions and complaints from several citizens who visited the social services of the Municipality of Athens expressed their discomfort with the headscarves worn by Syrian women. There was also discontent about the fact that refugees had a right to temporary housing, while locals at risk of homelessness did not. In addition, there were complaints that people with refugee status had access to social benefits on the same basis as Greek citizens.Footnote 8 In practice, we experienced xenophobic reactions from locals on several occasions, such as the following:

  • Neighbours reacted strongly when the Municipality began renovating a municipal building on Mezonos Street to house the Athens Coordination Centre for Migrants and Refugees (ACCMR), the Blue Dot Child and Family Services, the Community Centre for Migrants, and to provide a space for migrant communities to meet.

  • Access to schools for refugee children was not an easy task. Local parents protested when children from the Eleonas camp came to their children’s school: They argued in vain for separate evening classes for refugee children.

  • In several Athens neighbourhoods, the renting of apartments to the Municipality of Athens to house refugees met with angry reactions from some residents. In response, the city government had equalised the distribution of rented apartments among the different neighbourhoods of the seven Athens districts and had asked neighbouring municipalities to promote the rental of apartments in their areas.

  • In the Sepolia the rental of a building with 10 apartments by a large international non-governmental organisation was cancelled following the reaction of residents, which was fueled by local sympathisers of far-right parties.

  • The establishment of an ICT training programme for refugees and migrants in a newly restored municipal building in Kipseli also met with strong reactions from local residents. The discontent subsided when it became known that locals would also benefit from these programmes, as the authorities of Athens did not want to segregate refugees and migrants from locals.

Despite the hostile environment in which the authorities of Athens had to operate, the formulation of the ‘problem’ and the communication of the ‘solutions’ were based on the firm political decision that refugees must be supported and integrated into the city, regardless of the political costs. Non-discrimination rules for all residents (permanent or temporary) were applied to all public activities and services provided by the Municipality of Athens. This political will was strongly expressed on all occasions and gradually helped to mitigate xenophobic reactions before they became strong. The decision to apply the principle of ‘mixed’ beneficiaries in the provision of services facilitated the building of relationships between locals, refugees and migrants and led to mutual acceptance.

4 ‘Forced’ Innovations in Organisational and Financial Capacities

4.1 Organisational Reforms

Even in ‘non-wicked’ situations, the motto, ‘it cannot be done because...’ was the first reaction of most municipal administrative staff to any new policy measure proposed by the city political leaders. Partly because of the real obstacles imposed by formal regulations and partly because of the legacy of a slow and non-proactive public sector, most officials would rather find a problem with any solution than a solution to any problem!

Three major organisational changes were introduced by the authorities to adapt the administration to the emerging arrival of refugees and related policy decisions:

  1. (a)

    The appointment of a Deputy Mayor for Migrants and Refugees in 2016 (Lefteris Papagiannakis, a human rights activist), who signalled the political will to act quickly and find refugee-friendly solutions to meet basic needs.

  2. (b)

    The establishment of a new administrative unit on the issue, which was responsible for implementing policies for migrants and refugees on the one hand, and for helping municipal employees cope with their xenophobic reactions on the other hand.

  3. (c)

    Establishment of a Community Centre for Migrants (Focal Point) in the Unit with the aim of assisting refugees and migrants with all bureaucratic procedures and claims regarding their rights (social benefits, etc.).

Since 2010, due to the restrictions imposed by the austerity measures, it has been almost impossible to hire staff, regardless of their specialisation or qualifications. This situation condemned the Municipality of Athens to a permanent shortage of staff. This has been particularly critical in the units, which have a high demand for specialised and trained front desk officials, such as those of the new Unit.

4.2 Overcoming Financial Barriers

Greek Municipalities depend on government funding, which was drastically cut during the economic crisis. Local authorities are subject to preventive control of all their expenditures by the Court of Auditors. In 2011, the negative effects of the austerity measures (more and more rigid restrictions) began to manifest themselves on the financial situation of the City.Footnote 9 In 2015, urgent social expenditures for refugees became necessary at a time when the Municipality not only had no funds of its own, but could no longer even accept financial donations in cash from foundations, companies or individual donors. Once donations entered the municipal accounting system, the money had to be spent according to the same strict and often irrational financial rules as the transfer of funds from the central government. Government funds to cover the additional cost to municipalities of housing refugees were not provided. On the contrary, the Ministry of Migration Policy failed to organise the necessary administrative procedures for the allocation of the important funds from the European Asylum, Μigration and Integration Fund (AMIF). The call for proposals was never published.

In this context, the government of Athens had to ‘invent’ innovative concepts to attract funds and then spend them on the basic needs of refugees. The city government had to ‘work around’ formalities and restrictions in order to implement urgent policies and meet ever-increasing social demands. One way to do this was to directly engage with donors and international institutions that were willing to contribute to addressing the so called refugee crisis in Greece. This was the case with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which transferred funds to the Athens Partnership, a private non-profit association (Somatio), for projects designed by the City. The Athens Partnership carried out specific projects and then donated the result of the project to the municipality in kind. This was the case with the establishment of the ACCMR (see Sect. 14.5), funding staff costs and activities as well as the renovation of the municipal Mezonos building that houses the Centre. Other donors also funded projects (e.g. ICT courses for adult refugees, etc.) through the same intermediary agency.

The funding scheme ‘invented’ for the City’s large-scale housing project for refugees was somewhat different. In this case, it was the Athens Development and Destination Management Agency (ADDMA) (mainly dedicated to tourism), operating on a private law basis, which received a five million euro grant from UNHCR for this purpose. It turned out that this was the only way for the Municipality of Athens to proceed with the rental of private apartments. According to the national financial regulations, public institutions were not allowed to rent apartments for purposes other than their premises. ADDMA had also ‘mediated’ the implementation of other projects, such as the five-million-euro pilot project ‘Curing the Limbo,’ funded under the EU’s Urban Initiative Actions (UIA) programme.

5 Innovative Collaborative Schemes for Policy Implementation

Greek Municipalities are situated at the lowest level of the hierarchy of the public administration, below the European (EU), national (Greek government), and regional (Attica regional government). Traditionally, the dependence of cities on national and regional governments was influenced by party political affiliations, ‘favouring’ those municipalities governed by parties belonging to the same political family. This was not the case for the City of Athens from 2015 to 2019, which exacerbated the City’s institutional and financial dependence. Indicative of the Municipality of Athens’ complete dependence on state funding was the fact that it had never applied for a competitive EU programme. Nor had it ever applied for funding in national European Social Fund tenders.Footnote 10 Drawing on external funding to address the refugee crisis appeared to be an ‘impossible mission’ because administrative staff lacked the appropriate skills to design and implement projects under open and competitive programmes.

Expanding collaboration with other public sector institutions and private non-governmental organisations was a ‘mandatory’ way to mobilise synergies and attract external support to address the key challenges of the refugee crisis. In the refugee crisis, there was another level of government (the international level) to engage with, as well as a wider range of private non-profit organisations (international foundations such as the International Rescue Committee, Catholic Relief Services, etc.).

With the aim of mapping and coordinating all these actors working in the field of refugee survival and integration, the government of Athens established the ACCMR, supported by a three-member team. The Centre created a network of 92 public and NGO organisations, all working in the field of refugees (non-profits, foundations, volunteer networks, etc.). Two hundred representatives of these organisations participated in the Centre’s thematic working groups and other activities. The Centre was an innovative policy tool by Greek standards. It collected and disseminated information on residence status, social rights, language and computer courses, and personal counselling and referral services. In addition, the Centre operated an observatory for arriving refugees that regularly conducted opinion polls on the refugee issue.Footnote 11

To facilitate cooperation and exchange of experiences among municipalities throughout the country and to distribute the number of new arrivals more evenly between large and smaller cities, the authorities of Athens also established a network of 12 Greek municipalities hosting refugees. The authorities had also initiated the creation of the EUROCITIES ‘Solidarity Cities Initiative’Footnote 12 to connect and collaborate with other European cities that have taken in large numbers of refugees.Footnote 13

This large network of international foundations and private organisations opened new opportunities to attract human and financial resources to implement the City’s policies. In addition to the City’s social policies funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (see Sect. 14.4), a wide range of services were revised by other actors such as the International Rescue Committee, which provided Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu interpretation services. International humanitarian organisations such as Médecins du Monde, Médecins sans Frontiéres, Action Aid, etc. offered medical care and social services. The Greek grassroots solidarity movement (which had already emerged during the economic crisis) now focused its priorities on refugees and migrants.

The following figure shows the linkages, flows and connections between policy actors, administrative levels, funding sources and connections between inter-municipal Units and the City’s agencies (Fig. 14.1).

Fig. 14.1
figure 1

Institutional mapping of Athens. (OECD, 2018, p. 37)

Full size image

6 Concluding Remarks

6.1 Untapping Policy Capacities

In 2016, the Mayor of Athens George Kaminis, was awarded the ‘2016 World Mayor Commendation for services to refugees’ (City Mayors, n.d.). The Municipality of Athens performance in the refugee issue prompted the OECD to select Athens as the best place to conduct a case study as part of its project ‘Territorial Approach to Migrant Integration: The Role of Local Authorities.’ The study analyses the policies of the Municipality of Athens in detail and discusses the multilevel governance environment and the specific measures taken to integrate refugees and migrants (OECD, 2018).

From an insider’s perspective, I argue that policy solutions to the ‘wicked problem’ of the massive arrivals of refugees between 2015 and 2018 were possible because the government of Athens managed to overcome important constraints and political obstacles that are deeply rooted in the Greek public sector. It is evident that the urgency of the refugee problem enabled breakthroughs and innovationsFootnote 14 that would be impossible if there were ‘tame’ policy problems to solve and if rational policy making phases and rules were followed.

The urgency of the problem, the complicated structure of governance and the divergence of policymakers and stakeholders required innovative skills and innovative management patterns from the politicians in charge. Struggling between political and administrative priorities, between conflicting responsibilities at all levels of policymaking (from the supranational level to grassroots citizen solidarity groups), we had to become ‘jugglers’ of procedures, resources and political management. Overcoming local reactions, inventing flexible administrative procedures, and embedding multi-governance patterns were part of our daily work during our four-year term of office. Inventing non-traditional methods to overcome various barriers and obstacles in policy design and implementation was the only way to achieve our political goals. Transforming the administration’s work organisation to maximise the impact of collaboration with non-governmental organisations, solidarity groups, volunteers, and international humanitarian organisations became a major challenge and experiment in innovation.

6.2 Sustainability in Question

However, the sustainability of innovative changes in policy capacity and policy implementation, such as those analysed in this chapter, can be challenged by counterproductive administrative and institutional inertia that tend to constantly create new ‘wicked problems’.

Due to the lack of financial and institutional autonomy of Greek local authorities, long-term reforms and sustainable policies need a more secure framework from the higher authority, the national government. For example, effective social integration of refugees requires a coherent and realistic national integration strategy with common guidelines for municipalities.Footnote 15 This should include the mandatory allocation of a certain number of refugees to each Greek municipality, proportional to its size and financial capacity, as is the case in Germany (Katz et al., 2016).Footnote 16 Such a centralised crucial decision, revolutionary by Greek standards, would require strong political determination from the national government which would necessarily disregard the political cost of various local reactions. At present, it seems unlikely that a Greek government, regardless of political trend would make the decision to distribute the task of integrating the 121,100 refugees living in the country (UNHCR, 2020b) equally among Greek municipalities. Therefore, large Greek municipalities such as the Municipality of Athens will have to continue to improvise policy solutions to ‘wicked problems’ by bending the multiple constraints and obstacles to refugee integration.

6.3 Informing Public Policy Analysis

The case of the authorities of Athens’ policy responses to the unexpected massive arrivals of refugees in 2015 has highlighted the long-standing dysfunctionality of both national and local Greek governments and policy makers and their lack of capacity to think strategically and respond to emergency situations. The anecdotal incidents and experiences described here suggest that rational policy choices do not prevail. In other words, the government of Athens’ immediate policy responses to the arrival of refugees could not meet the standards of a (normal) policy cycle as described in the main theoretical works in the framework of Public Policy Studies. Emergencies, unclearly defined responsibilities and a rigid institutional framework limited the smooth implementation of successive phases of policy making. The situation might be better viewed and analysed through the lens of theories of ‘wicked problems.’

Nonetheless, the experience of the Municipality of Athens in dealing with the refugee problem can be useful in highlighting the ‘black box’ of the political ‘system’ and how the power of different groups can influence agenda setting, policy design and policy tools, as Birkland (2019) points out. The lack of national strategies for social integration of refugees opened up policy opportunities for many actors, including local authorities. It fostered collaborative innovation in the public sector (Torfing, 2016) and strengthened political leadership and policy innovation through collaborative governance (Ansell & Torfing, 2017). It also tested the effectiveness of the strategic triangular framework (public sector, private sector, civil society) (Bryson et al., 2017). Last but not least, it has highlighted the benefits of networking in innovative public policy design (Hale, 2011).