Overview of the main changes since the previous report update

Author

Greek Council for Refugees Visit Website

The report was previously updated in June 2023.

International Protection

• Key asylum statistics: As per data published by the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum, The Asylum Service received 57,891 first time asylum applications and 6,321 subsequent asylum applications in 2023 –compared to 29,097 first time and 8,265 subsequent applications in 2022, respectively– mainly from applicants from Syria (21.8%), Afghanistan (14.8%), Palestine (10.5%), Iraq (10.1%) and Pakistan (6.3%). The recognition rate on the merits at first instance was 76.7% (compared to 62.3% in 2022), with 24,345 applicants receiving refugee and 591 subsidiary protections respectively, thus highlighting an ongoing prevalence of people in need of international protection amongst those arriving in Greece. However, as in previous years, a significant number of applicants were not provided with access to an in merits examination and their applications were examined and rejected under the safe third country concept, following the issuance of the Joint Ministerial Decision designating Türkiye as a safe third country for applicants from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Bangladesh. A total of 32,730 applications, of which 29,885 at first and 2,845 at second instance, were pending at the end of 2023, marking a close to 50% general increase compared to 2022 (22,170 pending applications, 17,249 of which at first instance and 4,921 at second), albeit a decrease in the backlog of pending cases at second instance.

Asylum procedure

• Number of arrivals: In 2023, a total of 48,721 refugees and migrants arrived in Greece by sea (41,561) and land (7,160) according to data published by UNHCR, marking a 159% increase compared to 2022 (18,780 arrivals). During the same period, those that were reported as having gone dead and missing (799) more than doubled compared to 2022 (343), largely on account of the devastating Pylos shipwreck, which adds up to what the EU Ombudsman has noted as a “recent history of concerns about the Greek authorities’ compliance with fundamental rights obligations”. The majority of those arriving was from Syria (31.3%), Afghanistan (20%), Palestine (16.3%), Somalia (6.5%) and Eritrea (4.2%). As to their demographics, of those arriving by sea, close to one in four (24%) were children, 17% of whom were recorded as unaccompanied upon arrival, while 18.2% were women and 56.9% men, with the majority of those arriving from Afghanistan, arriving in family groups, as in previous years. The registered number of entries in 2023 may however under-represent the number of people actually attempting to access the Greek territory, given the number of alleged pushbacks, which continued to be reported as a systematic practice during the year.
• Push-back practices: Allegations of pushbacks have continued being reported in 2023, inter alia prompting UN experts, including the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants to once more “urge Greece to take steps to ensure a transparent and impartial investigation into allegations of violations of the principles of non-refoulement and non-discrimination and of the right to life involving Greek law enforcement personnel, including the Hellenic Coast Guard, and border violence”. Between the start of the year and early 2024, the ECtHR has also granted an additional 22 interim measures in cases represented by GCR, with the majority of those alleging that they have been pushed back to Türkiye. Following a first controversial investigation on alleged pushbacks by the National Transparency Agency (‘NTA’) in 2022, which has been widely criticised on account of methodological gaps and omissions, no further such investigations or recommendations have been made public by the NTA in 2023. By contrast, following similar recommendations made in 2022, on account of “strong indications about persisting fundamental rights violations of a serious nature”, in June 2023 the FRONTEX fundamental rights officer once more recommended the suspension of the Agency’s operations in Greece, in accordance with article 46 of the EBCG Regulation. Human rights organisations and defenders bringing to light and/or supporting pushback victims have continued facing defamation, intimidation and criminalisation, including through prosecution on criminal charges. As highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders in her March 2023 report, “human rights defenders promoting and protecting the rights of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, including human rights lawyers, humanitarian workers, volunteers and journalists, have been subjected to smear campaigns, a changing regulatory environment, threats and attacks and the misuse of criminal law against them to a shocking degree”.
• Access to the asylum procedure:Access to asylum on the mainland remains highly problematic. Since September 2022, persons who want to submit an asylum application on the mainland should initially book an appointment through an online platform and then present themselves in one of the two registration facilities in Diavata (Thessaloniki) or Malakasa (Attica) to complete registration of their application.[1] However, access to the online platform is not always possible, while between May and August 2023, the platform stopped operating, thus making access to the procedure impossible in practice. Delays with respect to the scheduling of registration appointments have also continued being reported at least with respect to Malakasa RIC up to early 2024. In conjunction, these obstacles result in applicants have no access to their rights, nor being protected from detention. Lastly, upon presenting themselves at the registration facilities, applicants may be subject to de facto detention for a period up to 25 days, contrary to the requirements of Art. 8 of the Reception Directive. Access to the asylum procedure for persons detained in pre-removal centres has also remained a matter of concern.
• Subsequent applications: Subsequent applications lodged after the first subsequent application are subject to a fee of EUR 100 per applicant and, in case of families, EUR 100 per family member. Greece is the only EU Member State which requires payment of a fee to lodge a subsequent application, thereby raising concerns as to access to the asylum procedure. An Application for Annulment of the relevant JMD has been filled by GCR and RSA before the Council of State which, following postponement, was still pending at the end of the year.
• Processing times: The number of pending asylum applications has increased by close to 50% in 2023, compared in 2022, yet the lack of detailed data on examination timeframes makes it impossible to assess the extent of delays in 2023. At a general level, the procedure’s duration has been reported on average at less than 2.5 months by the Minister of Migration and Asylum in October 2023. Yet, in lack of a breakdown, this data is likely to also include, inter alia, applications that have been speedily rejected under the “safe third country concept” and, based on the categorisation of first instance decisions followed by the MoMA, also implicit/explicit withdrawals, thus making this an indicator of questionable use. This is particularly the case considering ongoing delays of months and at times of even more than year only with respect to the conduct of asylum interviews reported at least in Malakasa RIC and Ritsona camp in March 2024.[2]
• Legal assistance:  No state-funded free legal aid is provided at first instance, nor does the law establish an obligation to provide it. A state-funded legal aid scheme operates for the appeal procedure, on the basis of a registry of lawyers managed by the Asylum Service. However, obstacles in accessing free legal aid continued to be reported, inter alia because of the digitalisation of the procedure and the fictitious service of negative first instance decisions. The number of appellants who received free legal assistance by the State was not made available in 2023.
• Second instance procedure: Most appeals are rejected at second instance. Out of the total in-merit second instance decisions issued in 2023 (7,605), 8.6% resulted in granting of refugee protection, 3% resulted in granting (and/or maintaining a first instance decision granting) subsidiary protection and the rest (88.4%) were negative. During the same period, 1,523 appeals were rejected as “inadmissible” (late appeals) without an in-merit examination, due to the fact that the appellants did not comply with the obligation of an in-person appearance of the appellant or their appointed lawyer before the Committee, or to present a certification of residence to the Committee, which constitutes a disproportionate administrative burden imposed to the appellants. Appeals against decisions rejecting the application in the accelerated procedure or as inadmissible under certain grounds do not have automatic suspensive effect, despite the fact that these decisions also incorporate a return decision with immediate effect.
• Dublin: During 2023, transfers of asylum seekers, including unaccompanied minors, in the context of family reunification (“Dublin III”) were suspended due to the termination of the contract for the provision of air transport services and the delay of the procedure for the conclusion of the new one between the Department of Immigration and Asylum and the travel agency. Following a report from an accommodation Structure for unaccompanied minors and the intervention of the Greek Ombudsman, the process was completed and transfers restarted. During May and June 2023, 66 outgoing transfers were implemented under the Dublin procedure. Data for the rest of the year is not available due to the upgrade of the computer system carried out by the Services of the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum.
• Safe third country inadmissibility:In 2021, Greece designated via JMD Türkiye as a “safe third country” for asylum seekers originating from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia, despite the fact that no readmissions to Türkiye have taken place since March 2020. As a result, applications for international protection lodged by persons impacted by this decision throughout the Greek territory (borders and mainland) are examined under the safe third country concept and not on the basis of the individual risks they face in their country of origin (in-merits examination). Moreover, and as no readmission takes places, refugees whose applications have been/are rejected as inadmissible based on the “safe third country” concept end up in a state of legal limbo in Greece, and are exposed to a direct risk of destitution and detention, without access to an in-merit examination of their application. Following an Application for Annulment lodged by GCR and RSA before the Council of State, in February 2023, the Council of State decided to refer a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of article 38 of 2013/32/EU Directive, which was discussed at an oral hearing before the CJEU on 14 March 2024.

In 2023, 4,773 inadmissibility decisions were issued in application of JMD 734214/06.12.2022 on safe third countries, of which 3,454 at first instance and 1,319 at second instance (82 of which concerned Albania and North Macedonia), despite the suspension of readmissions to Türkiye. Contrary to Art. 38 (4) of the Asylum Procedures Directive, applicants are not provided with an in merits examination. As stated repeatedly by the EU Commission, ‘to the extent the applicant is not permitted to enter the territory of the safe third country, in particular if the underlying situation preventing entry persists since 2018 or 2020, the Member State shall ensure, in accordance with the Asylum Procedures Directive, that access to a procedure is given to the applicant’.

• Identification of vulnerability: The low quality of the medical and psychosocial screening process (if any) has remained a source of serious concern with regards to the identification of vulnerabilities on the islands. Vulnerabilities are often missed, with individuals going through the asylum procedure without having their vulnerability assessment completed first. No public health structures specialised in identifying or assisting torture survivors in their rehabilitation process exist across the country.

Reception conditions

• Freedom of movement: Asylum seekers subject to the EU-Türkiye statement, i.e. arriving on Greek islands, are subject to a geographical restriction (geographical limitation) order, which obliges them not to leave the respective island until the end of the asylum procedure. The geographical limitation is applied en masse and without any prior individual assessment to all new arrivals to the Greek islands, while the regulatory framework that entered into force in January 2020 significantly limited the categories of applicants for whom the restriction can be lifted. A number of relevant decisions and interim measures have been granted by the ECtHR in 2023, including in December, in a case represented by GCR, concerning two Afghan women and their five minor children who, following their arrival had been de facto detained in the Kos CCAC, in completely unsuitable conditions, without access to accommodation and necessary healthcare.
• Reception capacity:  Following the termination of ESTIA in December 2022, the Greek reception system has become one modelled on camp-based accommodation, yet notwithstanding available data on the capacity of island CCACs, which needs to be checked for its accuracy, the capacity of mainland camps is no longer regularly published and is therefore unknown. As of the end of 2023, a total of 32,900 persons were reported by the MoMA as residing in the Greek reception system, close to half of whom on the islands (15,914) and the rest in the mainland.
• Living conditions: As in the previous years, significant concerns have continued being observed and reported with regard to reception conditions in the newly established Closed Control Access Centres (CCACs) on the islands, including on account of their highly securitised nature. Particularly amidst the increased number of arrivals in the latter half of 2023, ongoing challenges with respect to the ability of the island CCACs have been further accentuated, while a number of interim measures granted by the ECtHR in 2023 further helps corroborate the unworkability of a system focused on receiving asylum applicants in remote locations at the borders. Regarding the mainland, a significant gap in available information makes it difficult to assess the full extent of conditions in the camps, and is in itself a gap that needs to be addressed. Yet applicants’ access to their rights (material reception conditions) has continued being hindered, including on account of the isolated nature of the mainland camps.

Detention of asylum seekers

• Statistics on detention: The total number of third-country nationals detained in Pre-Removal Detention Centres (PRDCs) during 2023 was 19,003, slightly increasing compared to 2022 (18,966). Amongst those detained throughout 2023, 504 were unaccompanied minors. At the end of the year, a total of 2,325 third country nationals remained in administrative detention, including 1,003 asylum seekers. Out of the total number of detainees at the end of 2023, 2,064 were detained in PRDCs and 261 in police stations or other police facilities. Amongst those still detained in PRDCs at the end of 2023, more than one in four (687) had been detained for over 6 months, while in the specific case of asylum seekers, more than one in three (338 out of 1,003) of those still detained in PRDCs at the end of 2023 had remained detained for periods exceeding 6 months.
• Detention in case of non-feasible return: During 2023, applicants for international protection as well as rejected asylum seekers continued to remain systematically detained without any proper consideration of the prospect of return to Türkiye, despite returns being suspended since March 2020. In 2023, as in the previous year, a number of Court decisions continued to acknowledge that in the absence of an actual prospect of removal, detention lacks a legal basis. Following dozens of cases of successful litigation, as well as repeated interventions of the Greek Ombudsman during at least the last two years, this practice has been to a certain degree limited in certain parts of the country. However, it remains applicable in detention facilities in Northern Greece, and in particular with respect to persons from Afghanistan, who remain in prolonged administrative detention despite the lack of any prospect of removal.
• Detention of applicants who have already asked for asylum though the online platform while at liberty:  Applicants who have booked a registration appointment through the Ministry’s platform have, in practice, continued being arrested and detained in view of removal, despite holding a document proving the existing appointment. In a number of Court decisions on cases brought before the Courts by GCR, the practice has been considered unlawful. According to those decisions, following access to the online platform and scheduling of an appointment for full registration, the person acquires the status of an asylum applicant. Despite these decisions, this pattern of arbitrary detention has persisted up to the end of 2023.
• Detention conditions: In many cases, detention conditions in pre-removal centres fail to meet adequate standards, inter alia due to their carceral and prison-like design. Police stations and other police facilities, which are by nature not suitable for detention exceeding 24 hours, continue to fall short of basic standards. At the end of 2023, no doctor was present in Paranesti and Kos PRDCs, while a psychiatrist was not available in any of Greece’s PRDCs.
• Legal remedies against detention: No free legal aid is provided for a detainee to challenge their detention decision before Courts, contrary to national and EU law. In 2023, out of the total 20,540 detention orders issued, only 5,001 (24.3%) were challenged before a Court. Ex-officio judicial scrutiny of detention orders remains largely ineffective and illusionary. Out of the total 6.369 detention decisions transmitted to Administrative Courts for ex officio examination, the extension of detention was not approved in only 25 cases.

Content of international protection

• Renewal of residents permits: Long waiting periods have continued being observed in a number of cases of renewal, which can reach, as far as GCR is aware, up to more than a year. Pending the issuance of a new residence permit, beneficiaries of international protection are granted a certificate of application (βεβαίωση κατάστασης αιτήματος) valid for six months. In practice, beneficiaries of international protection holding these certificates are only protected from detention and do not have access to any rights pending their residence permit’s renewal.
• Family reunification: Refugees who apply for family reunification continue facing serious obstacles which render the effective exercise of the right to family reunification difficult and in some cases impossible in practice. Lengthy procedures, the requirement of documents which are difficult and/or impossible to obtain for refugees, administrative obstacles as regards the certification of documents and issuance of family reunifications visas, are amongst factors hindering and/or making access to this right impossible.
• Housing of recognised refugees: Beneficiaries of international protection residing in reception facilities must, with few exceptions, leave the accommodation provided to them within 30 days of being notified of their positive asylum decision. Given the limited integration of recognised beneficiaries of international protection in Greece, this has continued to result in a high risk of homelessness and destitution. Since at least 2021, several Courts in other EU member states have, with exceptions, halted the return of beneficiaries of international protection to Greece, on account of the risk of being exposed to conditions of severe material deprivation amounting to violation of article 4 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, while in early 2023, the European Commission launched infringement proceedings against Greece on account of poor implementation of the Qualification Directive as regards the content of international protection, and in particular beneficiaries’ access to social rights.

Temporary protection

The information given hereafter constitute a short summary of the 2023 Report on Temporary Protection. For further information, see Annex on Temporary Protection.

• Key temporary protection statistics: A total of 26,848 people have been granted temporary protection in Greece as of 31 December 2023. The majority of whom are women (68.9%). The majority of beneficiaries were between the age of 35-64 (10,439), followed by those aged 18-34 (6,924) and those aged between 0-13 (5,760). Slightly more than 1 in 4 beneficiaries (26.6%) was a minor.

Temporary protection procedure:

• Scope of protection: In line with article 3(5) TPD, Greece has applied more generous provisions vis-à-vis refugees from Ukraine, and thus the temporal scope of protection has applied to those fleeing the country from 26 November 2021, instead of 24 February 2022. However, as regards third country nationals, only stateless persons and beneficiaries of international protection or equivalent national protection, including the member of their nuclear family, as long as the family existed and lived in Ukraine before 24/2/2022, are eligible, and not those with permanent residence in Ukraine and unable to return to their country of origin.
• Vulnerability identification: With the exception of checks, at the stage of registration, of indicators of trafficking in human beings, there was no specific procedure introduced for the identification of vulnerable applicants or beneficiaries. In what concerns unaccompanied minors, the General Secretariat of Vulnerable Persons and Institutional Protection, along with the Public Prosecutor, are informed in detail and immediately after registration of separated, and in very rare cases, unaccompanied children, from Ukraine.

Content of temporary protection

• Rights attached: Persons benefit from specific family reunification rules foreseen for temporary protection, freedom of movement, access to the labour market and to education and vocational training, social welfare, healthcare although not to the level of Greek nationals or other legally residing third country nationals. Βeneficiaries of temporary protection can also apply, until 4/3/2025, through an electronic platform, for any residence permit of the new Migration Code (L. 5038/2023) without the requirement of a valid visa.
• Housing: The main form of accommodation provided was reception centres; as of July 2022, accommodation was also provided through the HELIOS project to support successful integration, as accommodation support is offered along with language courses and employment support. Up to November 2023, out of a total of 45,221 persons that have enrolled into HELIOS since the programme first started operating in 2019, 14.1% have been Ukrainian nationals, albeit those also receiving accommodation support (rent subsidies) under the programme is not available.

[1] This does not apply in the case of UAMs, family members or fully registered asylum seekers, and persons having legally entered the country, who can lodge an application for asylum at the closest competent RAO or AAU.

[2] Solomon, Lost for Words: Lack of interpreters puts asylum seekers’ lives on hold in Greece”, 27 March 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/247fkvv6