❖ Article 38 of Directive 2013/32/EU does not preclude legislation of a Member State designating a third country as generally safe for certain categories of applicants for international protection, even if that third country has suspended, in general terms and without any prospect of a contrary development, the admission or readmission of those applicants to its territory. ❖ Member States may not, however, issue a decision rejecting an application for asylum as inadmissible on the basis of the concept of 'safe third country' in cases where they have established that the applicant for asylum will not be allowed to enter the territory of a country designated as safe. Therefore, the decision on the existence or not of the possibility of readmission to the third country, in this case Türkiye, becomes a prerequisite at the stage of issuing the decision on the asylum application and not at the stage of its execution, as has been the practice of the Asylum Service up to now, as well as in the majority of decisions of the Independent Appeals Committees. It should be noted that those decisions of the national authorities, based on the Proposals of the same Advocate General in Cases C-924/19 PPU and C-925/19 PPU, overwhelmingly interpreted, incorrectly, that the condition of effective or not readmission to the third country is reviewed not at the stage of issuance, but at the stage of execution of the decision declaring an application for international protection as inadmissible on the basis of the application of the safe third country concept. It should be recalled that the majority of the Plenary of the CoS, in the above-mentioned judgment, has interpreted Article 38 of the Directive, taking into account the provision of Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which safeguards the right to asylum, in a way that serves the purpose pursued by the Directive. In addition to the serious legal controversy over the interpretation of Article 38 given by the CJEU and its opposition to the adoption of the above-mentioned regulation - since it is contrary to fundamental principles of international and European Union law governing the interpretation of legal provisions- the CJEU's judgment is of major importance because it overturns an arbitrary and abusive practice of the Greek authorities which has been in force for many years –that of wholesale rejecting asylum applications as inadmissible under the safe third country principle– and puts an end to the denial of the rights of thousands of applicants, by prohibiting their rejection when there is no possibility of their readmission to Türkiye and dictating their individual examination in accordance with the Directive. On 27 February 2025 by decision of the Plenary of the Council of State (CoS), the Joint Ministerial Decision designating Turkey as a safe third country for asylum seekers originating from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh has been annulled. The Council of State, specifically, ruled that: ‘from the case file accompanying the Joint Ministerial Decision 538595/12.12.2023 issued by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Migration and Asylum, titled ‘Designation of third countries as safe and compilation of a national list pursuant to Article 91 of Law 4939/2022 [...]’ (Government Gazette B’ 7063), and particularly from the recommendation of the Director of the Asylum Service, it does not emerge that the criteria set out in Article 91 of Law 4939/2022 (Article 38 of Directive 2013/32/EU) were duly assessed for the designation of Türkiye as a safe third country for the aforementioned categories of foreign nationals. This is because the recommendation and its attached Annex merely summarize the texts of the international sources considered, without specifically evaluating the information contained therein against the criteria set forth in the law, so as to substantiate the legal requirements for the designation.’ Accordingly, the 18th Appeals Committee, in its IP/783018/2024 Decision, upheld an appeal against the rejection of a subsequent application, interpreting the applicable legislation in alignment with CJEU Decision C-134/2023. 181