the fast-track border procedure. In 2024, a total of 8,235 applications were lodged before the Asylum Unit of Fylakio, 3 of which were subsequent applications.588 Article 95(3) Asylum Code foresees that the fast-track procedure can be applied as long as third country nationals who have applied for international protection at the border or at airport / port transit zones or while remaining in Reception and Identification Centres (RICs), are regularly accommodated in places close to the borders or transit zones. Initially, a Joint Ministerial Decision (JMD) issued on 30 December 2020, provided for the application of the fast-track border procedure under Article 90 (3) IPA (L. 4636/2019) for those who arrived at the Greek Eastern Aegean Islands. 589 Main features of the fast-track border procedure under the Asylum Code The fast-track border procedure under Article 95(3) Asylum Code repeats the previous legal framework and provides inter alia that: (a) The registration of asylum applications, the notification of decisions and other procedural documents, as well as the receipt of appeals, may be conducted by staff of the Hellenic Police or the Armed Forces, if police staff are not sufficient. (b) The asylum applicant interview may also be conducted by Greek-speaking personnel deployed by EUAA. However, Article 95(3) Asylum Code has maintained the possibility, “in particularly urgent circumstances”, for the interview to be conducted by trained personnel of the Hellenic Police or the Armed Forces, as long as they have received specific training. (c) The asylum procedure shall be concluded in a short time period. This may –and often does– result in compromising the procedural guarantees provided by the international, EU and national legal frameworks, including the right to be assisted by a lawyer. Extremely brief time limits significantly affect the procedural guarantees to which asylum applicants are entitled in a fast-track procedure and, therefore, there should be an assessment of their conformity with Article 43 of the recast Asylum Procedures Directive (APD), which provides that restrictions on procedural rights in a border procedure cannot be imposed for reasons related to large numbers of arrivals. More precisely, according to Article 95(3)(c) Asylum Code: ❖ the Asylum Service shall issue a first instance decision within seven days; ❖ the deadline for the submission of an appeal against a negative decision is ten days; ❖ the deadline for the submission of an appeal does not always have an automatic suspensive effect, as provided by Article 110 (3) Asylum Code, and a separate application for suspension of removal needs to be submitted before the Appeals Authority, within the deadline for the submission of the appeal; ❖ the examination of an appeal shall be carried out within four days. The appellant is notified within one day to appear for a hearing before the Appeals’ Committees or to submit supplementary evidence; and ❖ the second instance decision shall be issued within seven days. It should be noted that these very short time limits seem to be exclusively at the expense of applicants for international protection in practice. In fact, whereas timelines are, as a general principle, not compulsory for the authorities and case processing at the borders takes several months on average, applicants still have to comply with the very short time limits provided by Article 95(3) Asylum Code. 590 In 2024, official data regarding the average time between the full registration of the asylum application and the issuance of a first instance decision under the fast-track border procedure was not available. In 2024, the fast-track border procedure continued being variably implemented depending on the profile and nationality of the asylum applicants concerned (see also Differential Treatment of Specific Nationalities in the Procedure). Yet as in previous years,591 specific data on in-merit and inadmissibility 588 589 590 591 See relevant monthly Consolidated Reports – Overviews for 2024 available at: https://migration.gov.gr/statistika/. Joint Ministerial Decision for the application of the provisions of par. 3 and 5 of Article 90 of IPA, No 15996/30.12.2020, Gov. Gazette 5948/B/31.12.2020. FRA, Update of the 2016 FRA Opinion on fundamental rights in the hotspots set up in Greece and Italy, 5 March 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/2HeRg79, p. 26. For more, see relevant AIDA reports on Greece, available here. 116