ΑΛΛΗΛΕΓΓΥΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ: ΕΞΕΛΙΞΕΙΣ ΣΤΟ ΠΕΔΙΟ ΤΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΦΥΓΙΚΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΤΑΣΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΟΚΛΗΣΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ

Maria Daniella Marouda 65 for relief and protection operations outside the EU and an initial mistrust, delayed further coordination. In 2016, before the activation of ESI, there was no time for devising a national master plan on migration management, however no master plan existed either in 2018 nor is there one in 2019. ECHO partners worked their projects, without necessarily adapting their methods and designing according to the needs of an EU member state. Some of them did not even take into account the difference needed in the approach. Moreover, refugees and migrants were geographically dispersed all over the country, whereas most humanitarian actors usually working in third countries, prefer large camp sites (easier to coordinate, less expensive, easier to protect). A solution of a 50.000 refugee camp was proposed for Greece in October 2015 and was refused - and rightly so - by the Greek government. These issues created confusion overlaps and lack of coordination, for at least 18 months. Moreover, local authorities, especially mayors, were not advised, in the designing of the projects, even if they were the ones directly in contact with beneficiaries and with a better knowledge of the situation. ESI decisions were made centrally, without valuable info shared by local partners that were on the ground when the mechanism was launched and in the first crucial months. Only when local part- ners started to be involved more in the projects, did the situation improve as also acknowledged by the internal EC evaluation. It is important to note that frame- work partners of ECHO received funding for projects they had filed without pri- or consultation and then sub-contracted “local partners”. Even the term “local” misses realities on the ground, since a number of Greek branches of international NGOs could have been initially preferred than their international partners. They had a better knowledge of the context and the legal framework, having worked for years on these files. Moreover, coordination meetings initially confused the authorities since the same IO, or INGO would include different national branch- es (i.e. UNHCR, UNICEF, UNDP, IOM, working under an integrated approach, MSF Greece, France, Belgium or Spain, or the Red Cross Movt inc. Hellenic Red Cross 58 , Danish Red Cross, Spanish Red Cross and the International Federation of the Red Cross/Crescent). Direct access to ESI funding should have been given as a priority to actors with an established presence in Greece, and this would have achieved a lasting im- pact on the ground, and would have increased their capacity even further, as also 58. See relevant reports of the International Federation of the Red Cross on the Emergency Appeal for Greece 2016-2019, with the final financial reports delivered on April 2019 and accessed at https://www.ifrc.org/en/publications-and-reports/appeals/?ac=m drgr001&at=0&c=&co=SP5GRGR&dt=1&f=&re=&t=&ti=&zo= as well as an interesting article on the involvement of the HRC volunteers, Latimir K., National volunteers in an international crisis, 67 Humanitarian Exchange, September 2016, online https:// odihpn.org/magazine/national-volunteers-international-crisis-view-inside/