INTRODUCTION • m aintaining a climate that is prohibitive for aspiring mobile populations and for already-settled people who lack the pre-conditions for achieving asylum. • the intensification of procedures and operations for return and readmission. For Greece, a discernible political principle with particular national priorities, apparently had not been fully developed. The country agreed to put into practice faithfully the priorities of the European Union, trusting that the “frozen” provisions of the existing Dublin system would not be activated until the shaping and putting into effect of new, commonly accepted, and collaboratively achievable European policies could be agreed. While these questions for Greece seem to have abated lately, the application of the Joint Statement with Turkey remained inflexible. In 2016, two basic factors, closely linked to one another, played a dominant role in the overall depiction of the management of third country nationals’ mixed flows: on one hand, the establishment of “hotspots” on five islands in the north-eastern Aegean, after the closure of borders in the so-called “corridor” in the Western Balkans, and, on the other, the Joint EU-Turkey Statement, dated 18.3.2016. The year 2017 was one in which the problems of implementation of these initiatives were revealed, both at the level of effective management of irregular migrants, as well as on the issue of protecting their fundamental rights. Some of the general features depicting 2017 were: • The overall implementation of geographical confinement measures to already saturated islands, even including individuals who belong to vulnerable groups, • the increased detention in police stations, and outside the pre-removal centres, • the small number of returns/readmissions compared with the influx from the maritime borders and the Evros region, • the various problems arising from the implementation of special procedures of asylum on the borders. These affected the pace of return procedures for these persons and the guarantees for their international protection, as well as the living conditions of those people aimed at readmission. As the national mechanism for monitoring the return of third country nationals, [based on Directive 2008/115/EC (“Return Directive”) and on Law 3907/2011, which transposed the Return Directive into Greek legislation], the Independent Authority carries out, in a systematic way, the responsibility for external monitoring of the return procedures. As recorded in this Special Report, the Greek Ombudsman carries out sample controls that result in reports, 8