Number of staff and nature of the first instance authority

Author

Greek Council for Refugees Visit Website

The Asylum Service is responsible for examining applications for international protection and competent to take decisions at first instance.

Staffing and capacity

Asylum Service: PD 104/2012, as modified by L 4375/2016, provides for Regional Asylum Offices (RAO) to be set up in Attica, Thessaloniki, Thrace, Epirus, Thessaly, Western Greece, Crete, Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Rhodes. It is possible to establish more than one Regional Asylum Office per region by way of Ministerial Decision for the purpose of covering the needs of the Asylum Service.[1]

At the end of 2022, the Asylum Service operated in 23 locations throughout the country.[2]

Source: MoMA, Factsheet December 2022 & RSA, The Greek asylum procedure in figures in 2022.

EUAA: In April 2016, the law introduced the possibility for the Asylum Service to be assisted by European Asylum Support Office (EASO) personnel “exceptionally” and “in cases where third-country nationals or stateless persons arrive in large numbers”, within the framework of the Fast-Track Border Procedure.[3] a subsequent amendment in June 2016, national legislation explicitly provided the possibility for the asylum interview within that procedure to be conducted by an EASO caseworker.[4] The IPA has maintained this option, and has inserted the possibility for fast-track border procedure and admissibility interviews to be conducted by personnel of the Hellenic Police or the Armed Forces in particularly urgent circumstances.[5] Since May 2018, Greek-speaking EASO personnel could also assist the Asylum Service in the Regular Procedure.

Greece has received operational support by EASO/the EUAA since 2011. The 2022-2024 plan was amended in April 2022 to take into account the changes in the operational context in light of the invasion of Ukraine.[6]

In 2022, the EUAA deployed 674 experts in Greece,[7] most of whom were temporary agency workers (648). The majority of these experts were caseworkers (103), followed by registration, administrative and information provision assistants (91), site management reception assistants (78), reception assistants (50), case management reception assistants (42), Information Management (IM) assistants (32), vulnerability reception assistants (28) and a series of other programme and support staff (e.g. operations assistant, field support staff, training support staff, legal officers, Dublin staff, etc).[8]

As of 20 December 2022, there were still a total of 558 EUAA experts present in Greece, of whom 77 were caseworkers, 52 site management reception assistants, 47 registration, administrative and information provision assistants, 41 case management reception assistants, 29 Information Management (IM) assistants.[9]

^[1] Article 1(3) L 4375/2016.

^[2] MoMA, Factsheet December 2022, https://bit.ly/3ka1evV and https://bit.ly/3kgmy2K.

^[3] Article 60(4)(b) L 4375/2016.

^[4]  Article 60(4)(b) L 4375/2016, as amended by Article 80(13) L 4399/2016.

^[5]  Articles 77(1) and 90(3)(b) IPA.

^[6] EUAA, Operational Plan 2022-2024 agreed by the European Union Agency for Asylum and Greece, 1 April 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/420NLHL.

^[7]  EUAA personnel numbers do not include deployed interpreters by the EUAA in support of asylum and reception activities.

^[8] Information provided by the EUAA, 28 February 2023. In the figures above, the same persons may have been included under different profiles, if a change in profile took place in the course of 2022.

^[9]  Information provided by the EUAA, 28 February 2023.