country, bilateral or multilateral inter-governmental agreements or agreements of the third country with the European Union, as well as internal practice), 813 remains in force. The latest JMD establishing the list of safe third countries was published in December 2023 and includes the countries mentioned in the previous JMD.814 It must be stressed that these JMDs provide no reasoning as to why and on the basis of which information Türkiye was designated as a safe third country for the five nationalities. Instead, they refer to “Opinions” of the Head of the Asylum Service, which have not been made public, in contravention of Articles 12(1)(d) and 38(2)(c) of the Asylum Procedures Directive and Articles 86(3) IPA, previously in force and 91(3) of the Asylum Code. According to Article 91(3) of the Asylum Code, the information (domestic legislative status of the third country, bilateral or multilateral inter-governmental agreements or agreements of the third country with the European Union, as well as internal practice)” taken into account for the adoption of a JMD designating a country as a “safe third country”, must be “up to date and come from credible sources of information, in particular from official domestic and foreign diplomatic sources, EASO, the legislation of the other Member States in relation to the concept of safe third countries, the Council of Europe, and UNHCR. The European Commission shall be informed of any decision designating a country as a safe third country. The European Commission has expressly stated that:815 ‘Article 12(1)(d) of Directive 2013/32/EU provides that such information, when taken into account by the deciding authority, should also be accessible to the applicant and his/her legal advisers. To the extent Opinion 8815/14.05.2021 of the Director of the Asylum Service contains information referred to in Article 10(3)(b) of Directive 2013/32/EU, and the deciding authority takes the opinion into account for the purpose of taking a decision on an application for international protection, it should be made accessible to the applicant and his/her legal advisers’. Contrary to Article 91(3) of the Asylum Code, the Opinion was simply a compilation of sources of information about Türkiye and contains no legal reasoning as to why this information leads to the conclusion that Türkiye is a safe third country for asylum applicants from the five countries concerned. In fact, the sources mentioned in the “Opinion” seem to rather substantiate the opposite conclusion. Finally, it should be mentioned that the “Opinion” has still not been published by the authorities nor is it included as part of the applicants’ file in the inadmissibility decisions.816 As a result, since the entry into force of the JMDs, the applications lodged by those nationals of these countries can be rejected as "inadmissible" without their applications being examined on their merits. The criteria provided by the Asylum Code are to be assessed in each individual case, except where a third country has been declared as generally safe in the national list. 817 Such provision seems to derogate from the duty to carry out an individualised assessment of the safety criteria where the applicant comes from a country included in the list of “safe third countries”, contrary to the Directive and to international law. Even where a country has been designated as generally safe, the authorities should conduct an individualised examination of the fulfilment of the safety criteria. Moreover, there should be a possibility to challenge both the general designation of a country as safe and the application of the concept in an individual case.818 Application of the designation in practice 813 814 815 816 817 818 JMD 458568/15.12.2021, Gov. Gazette 5949/B/16.12.2021, as above. JMD 538595/12.12.2023 (Gov. Gazette 7063/B/15-12-2023) available at: https://bit.ly/4b8PcHK. European Commission, Reply to parliamentary question E-3532/2021, 4 October 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3NimFGj. Equal Rights Beyond Borders, HIAS Greece and RSA, The state of the Border Procedure on the Greek islands, September 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3VbNjU5, pp. 19-20. Article 91(2) of the Asylum Code. RSA, RSA Comments on the International Protection Bill, October 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/3eqsDC0, pp. 4-5. 176