Paper short abstract:

Considering Greece Europe's borderland in the age of refugee crisis my aim is to challenge and to theorize securitization processes driving European states to close further their borders despite the fact that the association of immigration with terrorism is not supported by evidence.

Paper long abstract:

The year 2015 Greece, the 'undisciplined' and marginal 'European other' was found again at the center of European political interest and criticism as the country became the largest gate through which almost one million of refugees and undocumented immigrants entered the European territory. On the top of that, the Paris terrorist attacks of December of 2015 brought up forcibly the issue of securitization of European borders and in this respect Greece as the main gate of entrance of refugees and immigrants. Despite of the fact that, 6 out of the 8 terrorists were European citizens, the attack operated as a pretext for the implementation of extremely strict immigration policies. Paradoxically, not only in France but also in Hungary and in Poland the decision to close the borders in the middle of refugee crisis increased the popularity of the anti-immigration leaders while Merkel in Germany supporting more open immigration policies saw her popularity to diminish. My aim in this paper is twofold: Firstly, to theorize these rapid developments concerning securitization and its association with immigration. Secondly, to raise further questions regarding Greece as Europe's borderland not merely on geographical grounds, but because in Greece and in the Aegean European immigration policies are blatantly exposed manifesting the large gap between European rhetoric on human rights and the realities of European biopolitics and thanatopolitics.