Registry of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum is sufficient to elevate the misdemeanors provided for in Article 24 of Law 5038/2023 (facilitating entry, facilitating illegal residence, refusal to surrender a travel document, etc.), to felonies for which severe prison sentences and fines are prescribed (‘imprisonment of up to ten (10) years and a fine of at least twenty thousand (20,000) euros’). Furthermore, the mere initiation of criminal proceedings is sufficient to remove the organization from the Registry of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. Similarly, in the case of a residence permit holder, the mere initiation of criminal proceedings is sufficient to revoke the residence permit. Article 16 provides that membership in a civil society organization constitutes an aggravating circumstance in relation to the offense of trafficking under Article 25 of Law 5038/2023.197 Legal access to the territory (beyond family reunification) Legal gateways to enter Greece are not provided to persons in need of international protection, nor does Greece issue visas on humanitarian grounds. The only exception was in 2021, when Greece accepted 819 Afghan nationals due to ‘the country’s commitment to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghan nationals in danger’ following the Taliban’s arrival to power. 198 2. Reception and identification procedure 2.1. The European Union policy framework: ‘hotspots’ The “hotspot approach” was first introduced in 2015 by the European Commission in the European Agenda on Migration, as an initial response to increased refugee arrivals to the EU.199 Its adoption was part of the immediate action to assist Member States which were facing disproportionate migratory pressures at the EU’s external borders and was presented as a solidarity measure. The initial objective of the “hotspot approach” was to assist Italy and Greece by providing comprehensive and targeted operational support, so that the latter could fulfil their obligations under EU law and swiftly identify, register and fingerprint incoming migrants, channel asylum seekers into asylum procedures, implement the relocation scheme and conduct return operations. 200 In order to achieve this goal, EU Agencies, namely the EUAA (previously EASO), Frontex, Europol and Eurojust, worked alongside the Greek authorities within the hotspots. 201 The hotspot approach was also expected to contribute to the implementation of the temporary relocation scheme, proposed by the European Commission in September 2015.202 Therefore, hotspots were envisaged initially as reception and registration centres, where Greek authorities, with the support of EU Agencies would “swiftly identify, register and fingerprint incoming migrants”, following which “[t]hose claiming asylum [would] be immediately channelled into an asylum procedure”.203 Interestingly, at the time, nowhere was it specified or mandated that said “channelling” (or referral) was to be made within the premises of the initial arrival/reception facility (i.e., the RICs or “hotspots”). Instead, the initial Greek response to the “hotspot approach” seems to refer to ‘[a] headquarter Hotspot in Piraeus […] where asylum seekers [would have been] received from different arrival points’, which if implemented as such, could have perhaps led to the establishment of a more functional reception system. 204 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 GCR Comments by the Greek Council for Refugees on the draft bill by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum titled: “Promotion of Legal Migration Policies” (available only in Greek) https://tinyurl.com/2s49vc3d. MoMA, Press release, 23 November 2021, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3yzVCzV. European Commission, European Agenda on Migration, COM(2015) 240, 13 May 2015, available at: https://bit.ly/3TrnbG3. Ibid. Ibid. European Commission, Council Decisions (EU) 2015/1523 of 14 September 2015, OJ 2015, L239/146 and 2015/1601 of 22 September 2015 establishing provisional measures in the area of international protection for the benefit of Italy and Greece, OJ 2015, L248/80, available at: https://bit.ly/43T44rt. European Commission, European Agenda on Migration, COM(2015) 240, op.cit. p. 6. European Commission: Migration and Home Affairs, The Hotspot approach to managing exceptional migratory flows, 11 September 2015, available at: https://tinyurl.com/2kxbbt9y; See also GCR, Limits of Indignation: the EU-Turkey Statement and its implementation in the Samos ‘hotspot’; 10 April 2019, available at: https://tinyurl.com/4h3szes5. 58