Immigrants and refugees enjoy the sea near the new temporary camp on the island of Lesvos on September 15, 2020. [Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP]
What have the SYRIZA and ND governments done with the NGO register?
Since 2016, successive governments have been trying to regulate the much-publicized register, which will "put in order" the NGOs dealing with the refugee crisis. This article is the first part of a larger dossier.
Immigrants and refugees enjoy the sea near the new temporary camp on the island of Lesvos on September 15, 2020. [Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP]
“Their activities will be put in order, so as to distinguish from the ones that actually serve their purpose to those that appear to serve other interests… From now on, these organizations will have a "name and surname". They will all be included in a unified register, and their goals, their members, their origins and their operating regulations will be made known. And they will be controlled by the state. Most NGOs are actually helping to address the problem, but we know that there are some which do not live up to their stated mission. And we will not tolerate it any longer. ".
| Για την ελληνική εκδοχή αυτού του άρθρου πατήστε εδώ. |
In brief
Efforts to create a Register of NGOs dealing with immigrants and refugees have been underway since 2016. In 2018, during the SYRIZA / ANEL government, the pre-conditions were made stricter by the addition of further criteria. In February 2020, during the ND government, a supplementary register was established for the members of the NGOs, and the conditions for registration in it were set by the April Join Ministerial Decision, which also further restricted the criteria for the NGO Register. The criteria for the certification of an