Cross-border placement of a child including foster family

1 Which authority is to be consulted and to give prior consent before the cross-border placement of a child within your territory?

The authority competent to receive requests from EU Member States to place a child in an institution, child protection facility or foster family in Greece is the Private International Law Department (Tmíma Idiotikoú Dikaíou) of the Ministry of Justice (Ypourgeío Dikaiosýnis), which has been designated as the Central Authority. Applications for the placement of children in Greece are approved by the Public Prosecutor of the Juvenile Division of the Athens Public Prosecutor’s Office and their alternate.

2 Please describe shortly the procedure for consultation and the obtaining of consent (including required documents, deadlines, modalities of the procedure, and other relevant details) for cross-border placement of children within your territory.

Together with the request to authorise the placement of a child, the applicant authority must send the following information, with an official translation into Greek, to the Central Authority of Greece. These are:

(a) the forename, surname and nationality of the parent, the date, place of birth and place of residence of the child, and social security number, if any;

b) the name, date, place of birth and place of residence of the person exercising parental authority or custody of the child, their telephone number and e-mail address, social security number, if any, and their consent to the placement. If no declaration of consent is attached, the reason why it is not required must be stated;

c) a certificate or other equivalent document issued by the competent authority showing the child’s criminal record status. In the absence of such a certificate or other equivalent document, an attestation by a competent authority should be provided;

d) a detailed report on the child’s condition and personality, the necessity and reasons for the placement and the proposed duration of the placement (start and end date) written by a social worker or a juvenile supervisor or another official from the responsible authority of the child’s last place of residence or stay before the placement;

e) the child’s health insurance certificate (iatrofamakeftiki) issued by a public social security institution and a certificate of the child’s state of health, issued within the last three months before the child is sent and indicating, in particular, their vaccination status, any pharmaceutical treatment, any transmissible disease, and any previous hospitalisation for any reason;

f) proposals for the child’s contact with parents or other relatives and their full details;

g) full documentation from the competent authority of the child’s last place of residence regarding special educational needs, if any;

h) a written declaration by the natural or legal person who has custody of the child or by another competent body to undertake to cover all the child’s placement and subsistence costs. Such declaration must constitute an express acknowledgement of debt and contain the full details of the declarant, their home address and tax identification number or social security number, if these are provided for under the relevant legislation of the Member State in which the claimant is domiciled or, in the case of a legal person, its registered office;

i) decisions of courts or other authorities concerning the child, if any;

j) if a placement is proposed to a particular foster family, the full identity and address of its adult members and their tax or social security numbers, where available, must be provided.

The Greek Central Authority is responsible for informing the applicant authority if there are any shortcomings in the above documents and data. The request for approval of placement and the accompanying documents must then be sent to the Public Prosecutor of the Juvenile Division of the Athens Public Prosecutor’s Office. The Public Prosecutor appoints a supervisor from the Athens Juvenile Supervisor Service, who gathers information on the availability, as appropriate, of child protection institutions or facilities, and whether they have the required approvals and are overseen by the Greek authorities. The report that the Juvenile Supervisor submits to the Public Prosecutor of the Juvenile Division must include, in addition to the above information, a proposal for the most appropriate child protection institution or facility for the placement of the child concerned. A similar report is submitted by the Juvenile Supervisor in cases where the request by the foreign authority concerns the placement of a child in a foster family in Greece.

The Public Prosecutor of the Juvenile Division of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Athens Court of First Instance approves or rejects the request for the placement of a child within two months of the request and the accompanying documents being submitted by the Private International Law Department of the Ministry of Justice.

3 Has your Member State decided that consent is not required for cross-border placements of children within your territory where the child is to be placed with certain categories of close relatives? If yes, what are the categories of close relatives?

There is no exception to the required consent for cross-border placements where the child is to be placed with close relatives.

4 Does your Member State have in place any agreements or arrangements for simplifying the consultation procedure for obtaining consent for the cross-border placement of children?

There are no such agreements.