Pavllopullos: Greek citizenship for the long-term emigrants

The minister of Interior of Greece Prokopis Pavllopullos said that Greece is examining the possibility to give the citizenship to the foreign emigrants who have been working and living for a long time in this country. According to him this will be undertaken within the frame of the reforms to the actual emigration laws. “The Greek government is examining the possibility for the foreign citizens who have been living for long in Greece to take the citizenship,” Pavllopullos told the Kathimerini newspaper. He added that this is being done with the aim of all citizens having equal rights on basis of the constitution adding that the foreigners will be immediately recognized the right to vote and to be elected. According to the official data about 870 thousand foreign emigrants, most of them Albanians, have come to Greece since 1991. The emigrants societies have criticized the bureaucracy of the Greek state, in issuing stay permissions, for this reason Pavllopullos declared that these procedures will be reduced too to eliminate the corruption. The Greek minister of Interior confirmed that the government has been connected through a virtual web to the emigrants societies whose number reaches to 54.