The panel called “Local Governments and Migration: Combating Discrimination in Greece and Turkey” was held on Friday, January 24, 2020 at the Hrant Dink Foundation. The panel, moderated by journalist Murat Utku, was attended by Georgios Kaminis, former Mayor of Athens and the founder of Solidarity Cities, Prof. M. Murat Erdogan, Chair of Turkish German University Political Science and International Relations Department, and Burcuhan Şener, Director of the Marmara Municipalities Union’s Migration Policy Center. During the panel, the work and the role of local governments in social coexistence and combating discrimination, and the challenges and innovative methods in Greece and Turkey was discussed.
During his talk, Mayor Kaminis emphasized that mass migration can be managed only through the coordinated work of local, national and international institutions, and stated that Solidarity Cities, which brings together many local governments in Europe, was established for this purpose. Kaminis stated that ghettoization is one of the obstacles to social cohesion and explained that the aim of "open schools" they have opened in different parts of Athens was to aid the social cohesion of the second generation refugees. Kaminis stated that in his experience local governments usually will not have any difficulties in finding funds as long as they want, and gave the example that they did not spend any money from the municipal budget for their services to the refugees during his mayor's term and they provided all the resources from the European Union and private donations.
Academician Murat Erdogan highlighted the existence of hate speech and social fragility in Turkey before the arrival of the Syrian refugees. He emphasized the non-uniform distribution of the Syrian refugees throughout the municipalities and consequently the unfair workload on some municipalities. Erdogan stated that municipalities cannot succeed in migration management without capacity building and financial support. Erdogan stated that some municipalities see a risk at being “too successful” in their refugee work which might draw more refugees to the municipality and that their fear of losing ground with their constituents also affects the quality of their refugee work.
Burcuhan Şener stated that social assistance had been provided to the refugees in Turkey for a long time, yet social integration was only recently being stressed and studied. Şener emphasized that municipalities cannot provide adequate services due to legal constraints and financial problems, and stated that municipalities, who are doing relentless work in Turkey about refugees, should not shy away to communicate about their work from their social media accounts.
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Georgios Kaminis is a Member of the Greek Parliament. He was elected on July 7, 2019, heading the national list of “Movement of Change” (Kinima Allagis), a social-democratic party in Greece. He sits in the Standing Committee on Public Administration, Public Order and Justice of the Hellenic Parliament, shadowing, on behalf of “Kinima Allagis”, the work of the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection, the Ministry responsible for migration and refugee affairs. Mr. Kaminis served as Mayor of Athens between 2011 and 2019. First elected in October 2010, he was re-elected for a second term in May 2014 with the support of 14 different political parties and political groups. In 2003, he was unanimously elected by the Greek Parliament as the Greek Ombudsman, and re-elected for a second term in 2007. Mr. Kaminis served as Deputy Ombudsman for Human Rights from 1998 to 2003. He is an Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Athens, Faculty of Law and a member of the Department of Parliamentary Studies and Research of the Greek Parliament. In 2016, he was awarded the “World Mayor” Commendation for services to refugees. He studied law at the University of Athens and holds a doctoral degree (Doctorat d’Etat) from the University of Paris I. Born in New York City, has also lived in Osaka, Paris, Madrid and Heidelberg. 
M. Murat Erdoğan is a member of the International Metropolis Board of Directors and UNESCO-Turkey Communications Committee. Until November 2017, he worked as a faculty member at Hacettepe University. He is the founder and former director of of Hacettepe University Migration and Politics Reseach Center-HUGO. Mr. Erdoğan is political scientist and Migration specialist. He received his PhD degree from University Ankara University and Bonn University in political science with the dissertation “Turkey-EU Relationship after the Cold War: 1990-2005”. Between 2000 and 2003, Erdoğan worked as a Press Counselor at the Embassy of Berlin. Afterwards, he served as Advisor to the EU Harmonization Commission of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (2004), Advisor to the President of the Council of Higher Education and Advisor to the President of Hacettepe University (2012-2016). Professor Erdoğan has been a visiting scholar at Duisburg-Essen (2007), Berlin-Humboldt (2010), Oxford (2012) and AICGS (2014) at the Johns Hopkins University Center for German Studies and Humboldt University (2019). Erdoğan’s academic interests are voluntary and forced migration, refugees, Turkey origin abroad, the EU, political cartoons, political behavior, Islamophobia, Germany, and Turkey's foreign policy. Currently he is conducting studies about the Turkish diaspora in Europe, "Euro-Turks-Barometer", and also carrying out comprehensive and periodic public opinion surveys on Syrians in Turkey, “Syrians Barometer.”
Burcuhan Şener completed her undergraduate education in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. She earned her master’s in European Union Studies in the Department of International Relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She focused on EU’s legal framework and policies on migration, and Common European Asylum System in her thesis. She has been working at Marmara Municipalities Union (MMU) since 2015. She founded Migration Policy Center in 2015. She is the Director of the Migration Policy Center and International Cooperation Coordinator at the Marmara Municipalities Union. Her areas of interest are international relations, local diplomacy, migration, social inclusion, and local governments.
Murat Utku graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of Economics. He worked as a reporter for Radikal newspaper, Nokta and Aktüel magazines, and as a TV journalist for CNN Türk, Doğan News Agency and Al Jazeera Turk. He followed crises, earthquakes, elections, conflicts and diplomatic developments in many parts of the world, especially in the Middle East. He worked as a field producer on documentaries, “Human Flow” and “The Rest”, directed by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, addressing the refugee problem in the world. Lastly, Murat Utku, who served as a senior reporter and assistant editor in charge at Medyascope, has a documentary film entitled “Resistance” which was awarded the best documentary award by the Cinema Writers Association (SİYAD). Utku teaches journalism as a part-time lecturer at Kadir Has University.
