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Flexicuritizing migration in a small state under geopolitical stress: a policy-ready framework for Greece (with Cyprus/Malta as light comparators)

Principal Investigator: Dr Georgia Dimari

Duration: March 2026 - February 2027

Project overview (FlexMIG)

FlexMIG develops and tests a policy-ready framework for migration governance in a small, geopolitically exposed EU member state, Greece. It examines whether a flexicuritisation approach, understood as combining proportionate security with faster status determination and early integration and activation, can deliver improved outcomes in effectiveness, legitimacy, and cost. The primary case is Greece, due to its sustained exposure to regional instability, recurrent instrumentalisation of migration flows, and the constraints and incentives that pertain to EU-level governance. Cyprus and Malta are included as light comparators, since they face similar constraints s small states, including limited administrative capacity and heightened exposure to external shocks, while also displaying meaningful variation in institutional design, reception arrangements, and public discourse.

The project concentrates on three policy domains where administrative and fiscal pressures are particularly pronounced and where feasible pathways for reform exist. First, border management and non-custodial measures. The project assesses policy packages such as community-based case management, reporting requirements, and targeted supervision as credible substitutes for routine detention, with attention to compliance, cost, and scalability across the Greek reception geography. Second, asylum and status determination timelines and quality. The project examines procedural and resourcing mixes that can shorten processing durations while maintaining decision quality, predictability, and procedural fairness. These features are central to legitimacy; hence they also shape downstream administrative burdens and expenditure. Third, early labour-market access and integration. The project analyses early activation packages, such as language provision, skills and credential recognition, and targeted matching to shortage occupations, with the aim of accelerating entry into employment, reducing longer-term dependency, and supporting social cohesion.

A core contribution of FlexMIG is the translation of flexicuritisation into measurable indicators and actionable policy components. Rather than treating flexicuritisation as a broad normative aspiration, the project specifies a set of monitorable variables, such as processing duration, administrative cost estimates, detention and non-custodial use rates, and indicators of early employment entry. This enables systematic assessment, comparability across cases, and direct applicability in policy design.

Methodologically, the project adopts a pragmatic mixed-methods design that integrates three elements.

1. First, crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis across Greece, Cyprus, and Malta for the period 2015 to 2025, using policy-domain patterns as the unit of analysis. Conditions include the intensity and design of non-custodial measures, the restrictiveness of detention practices, the speed and quality of status determination, the availability of early labour-market access, coordination capacity, and the dominant elite framing. Outcomes focus on administrative performance, fiscal efficiency using comparable cost indicators, and legitimacy indicators.

2. Second, discourse and frame analysis for the period 2015 to 2025, drawing on parliamentary transcripts, ministerial statements, party platforms at key junctures, and selected high-circulation journalistic materials. Frames include existential threat, proportionality and managed risk, human security and rights, economic contribution, and Europeanisation and burden-sharing. The analysis links framing dynamics to subsequent policy choices and signals of durability and acceptance, including shifts in media sentiment, litigation patterns, and complaints to oversight bodies.

3. Third, secondary quantitative triangulation using Eurostat, ELSTAT, national asylum-related indicators, UNHCR and IOM operational data, and OECD and EMN comparative reporting. Quantitative outputs inform threshold setting for cross-case comparison and support scenario costing where direct fiscal data are unavailable.

To ensure immediate usability, the project culminates in a Policy Design Toolkit for Greece that translates findings into realistic, costed 12 to 24 month reform scenarios. The Toolkit will include indicative KPIs, implementation sequencing, feasibility and legal robustness checks, and concise communication guidance. Policy relevance is further strengthened through two closed policy labs in Athens and Heraklion. These labs will stress-test feasibility with stakeholders from government, local authorities, civil society, and labour/market actors and will produce practical implementation checklists and specific messaging frames for stakeholders,

Overall, FlexMIG aspires to move beyond abstract debate and, thus, to deliver implementable pathways that preserve necessary control functions while reducing avoidable administrative burdens, improving predictability, and strengthening everyday legitimacy, particularly under conditions of geopolitical stress that can amplify volatility in small states.

Research Team