rsaegean.org | 1 March 2022
Greece arbitrarily deems Turkey a “safe third country” in flagrant violation of rights
Athens/Frankfurt-am-Main, 01-03-2022: Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) and PRO ASYL call upon the European Commission to immediately launch infringement proceedings against Greece regarding systemic violations of international and EU law, stemming from the arbitrary rejection of asylum applications based on the “safe third country” concept and from the prevention of refugees’ access to asylum procedures.
Despite the competent authorities’ official acknowledgment of the demonstrable impossibility to carry out readmissions to Turkey for four years under the Bilateral Readmission Protocol and two years under the EU-Turkey Statement, Greece channels all nationals of Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh throughout the territory into the “safe third country” concept pursuant to Joint Ministerial Decision 42799/2021 setting out a national list of safe third countries. This has resulted in a sharp increase of dismissals of asylum applications as inadmissible.