Before Greece reaches its third generation abroad, it must record the second. The children of Greek citizens born abroad are Greek by law, and Greek consulates are refusing to record them.

Greek-American attorney Kostas Alexakis responds to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on easier citizenship for the diaspora, arguing that the children of Greek citizens born abroad must be recorded first.

In September, when I raised the problems Greeks born abroad face at our consulates, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told me he understood the issue and would solve it. Three weeks later, in his 16 October interview with Neos Kosmos, he spoke as if that problem were solved and set his sights elsewhere: on making Greek citizenship easier for the third and fourth generations.

He said the path to citizenship is “more complicated than it should be.” He is right. He suggested it is more straightforward for the second generation and harder for later ones, and said simplifying it would be “one way of making more people Greek.”

The goal deserves support. But it passes over a more immediate problem. The children of Greek citizens born abroad, who are Greek by law from the day they are born, are being refused at Greek consulates when they ask the state to record that fact. Until that is fixed, promises to later generations will stall at the same counter.

What the law says

Under Article 1 of the Greek Citizenship Code, a child of a Greek parent is Greek from birth, wherever the birth takes place. (For births before 8 May 1984, citizenship passed through the father.) No application, oath or ministerial decision is involved. The child need prove only that a parent was a Greek citizen at the time of the birth. The law sets no residency requirement and does not ask whether, or where, the parents married.

The government’s own guidance agrees. A joint guide from the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, issued in English for Greeks abroad under the heading “Greece needs you!”, tells anyone whose parent was a registered Greek citizen at their birth: “You can acquire Greek citizenship by simply declaring your birth at the Greek Consulate in your place of residence.” Only those whose parent became Greek later must “submit an application.”

What happens at the consulate

In practice, Greek consulates in the United States will not accept that declaration unless the parents’ marriage has first been registered in Greece. The consular website says so directly: “the parents’ marriage registration in Greece is required before proceeding to the birth registration.”

For an adult applicant, this condition is often impossible to meet. Parents may have died, divorced or lost touch, and the applicant cannot register a marriage he was never party to. Applicants with a parent on a Greek municipal roll and their documents in hand are told their applications will not even be accepted.

Related practices make matters worse. Apostilled foreign birth and marriage certificates are treated as having no effect until recorded in Greece, which is the very recording being refused. Applicants also report that requirements and waiting times vary from one consulate to the next.

The results are hard to defend

  • A foreigner of Greek origin who naturalises under Article 10 is registered in a municipality of his choosing, as a 2014 ministry circular to the consulates confirms, without anyone examining his parents’ marriage. A person who has been Greek since birth is turned away for lack of that paperwork.
  • The consulate will register the parents’ marriage on the strength of an apostilled foreign certificate, but will not accept the same certificate as proof of the child’s parentage.
  • Athens now lets Greeks abroad vote from where they live. The children of Greek citizens cannot vote, or hold a Greek passport, until the state records the citizenship the law says they already have.

Officials may see the marriage requirement as a way to confirm paternity. But it serves no purpose where the Greek parent is the mother, and where it is the father, a birth certificate naming him or a formal recognition establishes paternity without it. Nothing in the Citizenship Code makes the parents’ marriage a condition of the child’s citizenship.

Why this must come first

Every claim by descent passes through the same chain of records. If each marriage must be registered in Greece before the next birth can be recorded, a grandchild meets the barrier twice and a great-grandchild three times. There is no route to the third and fourth generations that does not pass through the second.

Recording the children of Greek citizens is also the simplest task in citizenship policy. It needs no new eligibility rules and no discretion.

No new law is needed

Fixing this does not require legislation. One joint instruction from the two ministries that wrote the guide would do it:

  • Accept apostilled, officially translated foreign certificates as proof of parentage.
  • Once an applicant proves that a parent was a Greek citizen at the time of the birth, record the birth and the citizenship without delay.
  • Impose no condition the statute does not contain, such as prior registration of the parents’ marriage. Where needed, open an independent municipal record, as is already done for naturalised citizens.
  • Publish one list of required documents, the same at every consulate.
  • Issue written decisions within a fixed deadline, stating the legal basis for any refusal.
  • Process applications already refused or stalled on these grounds, without requiring them to be refiled.

The officials who apply these rules answer to the government. It can direct them to apply the law as written, and hold them accountable if they do not.

A test of intent

Whether the Prime Minister’s promise is more than political grandstanding depends on what happens next at the consulate counter. His government’s own guide promises that the children of Greek citizens need only declare their birth. If there is a legal basis for refusing that declaration, the government should state it. If there is none, the refusals should end.

The Prime Minister wants to make more people Greek. The place to start is with the people who already are.

Kostas Alexakis is a Greek-American attorney and community leader based in Annapolis, MD. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Source: Kostas Alexakis