The migration of highly educated population (brain drain) poses extremely significant impacts on origin countries' development, especially in cases in which, owing to their economic and social structures, these countries cannot promote the efficient allocation of their professionals. At the same time, the decision of those migrants to return home or remain abroad is affected by several factors. This paper aims to analyse this phenomenon by using primary data collected from Greece. Our findings indicate that it is not reasonable to expect that a large share of these people is likely to return, especially given the ongoing economic and social crises that further exacerbate the observed mismatch between supply and demand for a highly educated workforce in the country. These empirical results can assist the formulation of specific policy measures in order to reap the benefits of those individuals' presence abroad, which can undoubtedly enhance the developmental prospects of European countries. This study constitutes the first one on brain drain from Greece, while it is also the first study to compare highly skilled migrants who still work abroad to those who have returned.

This paper explores the extent to which people of different origins, natives and migrants, come together in everyday life in Europe. Instead of looking at overall ‘perceptions’ and ‘stances’, which are context-dependent and mediated through political-ideological currents and discourses as well as broader patterns of prejudice, we focus on sustained close contacts that suggest meaningful and organic relationships. Since it is most often people of migrant background who are blamed for leading ‘parallel lives’ and ‘not integrating’, we chose to focus on them and their interethnic friendships. Moreover, we seek to understand the relevance and role of the neighbourhood context in the development of those relationships. Despite the expressive fears in public discourses about the supposed negative impact of the presence of immigrants and ethnic minorities on social cohesion, our findings indicate that close interethnic relationships are not uncommon in diverse European cities. They further highlight that the neighbourhood context plays an important role in the first years of migrants’ settlement. Relationships in the neighbourhood develop in less formal social settings and are also less demanding in terms of host-country cultural skills on the part of the migrants, thus giving the opportunity to newcomers to develop close interethnic relationships with natives. Finally, the analysis supports the positive role of diversity at the neighbourhood level in the development of interethnic friendships and stresses the importance of the neighbourhood’s socio-spatial characteristics and its location in the wider urban net.

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This article considers the institutional position of the Commission within the European citizens' initiative (ECI) process, with particular emphasis on its decision regarding the admissibility/registration of a proposed ECI, and its final decision on the outcome of an ECI which has met the necessary levels of support. The purpose of this contribution is to juxtapose the case-law of the Court on the Commission's discretion and the relevant provisions of the Treaties with the evolution of European integration and, more specifically, the evolution of the Commission's role therein. Viewed under this prism, the Commission's powers at the registration stage (which in any event clearly fall under the scope of judicial review) are compatible with the constitutionalisation of the Union, whereas the Commission's width of discretion at the follow-up stage, while compatible with the Commission's prerogatives, cannot easily be reconciled, nonetheless, with the Commission's limited legitimacy when compared to that of the co-legislators, the fact that it may not always represent the Union interest, and the latter's pragmatic losses within the EU institutional balance. | INTRODUCTIONEven the most optimistic proponents of participatory democracy in the European Union (EU) would probably hesitate to claim that the European citizens' initiative (ECI), including its Regulation, 1 has generally been a success. The ECI has been criticised on various grounds, including the following: the procedure is unnecessarily complicated andThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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