Street Vendor Update

An article by Kathy Tzilivakis in the Athens News covers the racist ruling that prevents non-European street vendors from selling their goods at open air markets in Greece. The Council of State (the highest administrative court) will decide next month if the Government has the right to implement such a ban. Petros Hatziris, president of the union of open-air market vendors in Athens said

Personally, I believe that the decision is racist because it discriminates against the non-Greek immigrant vendors. That is why we have turned to the Council of State. We believe that we will win because the ministerial decision is a clear violation of anti-discrimination legislation

Speaking out against the Deputy Development Minister Ioannis Papathanassiou who signed the ministerial decision in August 2005, he also said

The deputy minister is extremely stubborn in sticking to this absurd decision and refusing to allow these 250 people to continue working. These people over the last 10 years have contributed as much as 30 million drachmas each in taxes and TEBE (social insurance). Why should they become jobless? It’s not like they are asking to become civil servants

Let’s hope the Council of State has the sense to overturn this ruling so that the vendors can continue to work and not be in danger of losing their residency status.

By barring immigrant vendors from returning to the markets, the government has put their residence at risk because the main stipulation for the renewal of the residence permit is stable employment. Even if they were to find a job, immigrants are only allowed to change their employment status (from self-employed to salaried employment and vice versa) when the time comes to renew their permit

Technorati Tags: employment, greece, immigrants, law, legal issues