Director of the Asylum Service in Greece, Dr. Markos Karavias, explains the procedure of becoming recognised as a refugee in Europe and why it takes so long.There is a story in Europe that the refugee crisis is over and that the numbers of arrivals are going down. That doesn't apply to countries like Greece or Cyprus. On our first episode, Markos Karavias tells Aristea about the growing number of asylum applications in Greece, the lack of competent interpreters, and what an asylum seeker should do in order to become or at least try to become documented. As of December 2018, almost 200,000 asylum applications have been lodged in Greece. According to data shared by the Asylum Service, in 2015, there were 13,187 applications submitted - a 39,8% increase from 2014 (9,431 applications). The EU-Turkey statement, signed one year later, on March 18, 2016, didn't really stop asylum seekers from risking their lives in the Aegean, and the numbers went up by 287,1% with 51,053 applications in total. The statistics for 2017 and 2018 show that Greece has turned from merely a country of transit into a country of destination for asylum seekers fleeing war in Middle East, with 58,642 and 61,760 applications submitted per year respectively.