Are immigrants scapegoats for the failure of the Greek State?
In recent days we have noted a trend of Greek politicians seeking to make immigrants in Greece a scapegoat for the failure of the State, and also for the failures of policymakers. Your recent article Immigrants blamed for States failure (July 9, 2003) is a welcome and serious contribution to the debate: However, we wish we could say the same of the article published a day later Are immigrants a threat? written by Mr Theodoros Katsanevas. It is unfortunate that this article cites no data, other than a low-quality UN projection, which is not taken seriously by scientists claiming that it is quite likely that in 20 or 30 years immigrants will outnumber Greeks. We should like to point out to Mr Katsanevas a few incontrovertible facts: The only official data on immigrants are from the 2001 National Census, which shows some 7 percent of the total population are non-Greeks. Of these, 1 percent are European Union nationals, Australians and North Americans. This ratio, although higher than in I
