Greek and foreign NGOs of the MoMA. Applicants in detention are not entitled to the cash-based support. ❖ Beneficiaries of international protection who upon turning 18 reside in accommodation centres for UAM or in temporary accommodation spaces for UAM, for a period of three months following their placement to the aforementioned accommodation spaces. In both cases, the new residency requirement as a pre-condition for receiving cash assistance, took effect on 1 July 2021, after first being announced through Press Releases issued by the MoMA in April and May 2021,678 and subsequently introduced in ministerial decisions in July and September. 679 As per the new framework, cash assistance is provided to those eligible at the end of each month, as long as it can be certified that they continue to reside in the facilities designated by the MoMA (i.e. facilities of the reception system). Applicants who are not accommodated in these facilities need to first apply, then be referred to and lastly placed to such accommodation, before the procedure for accessing the cash assistance can (re)start.680 In these cases, the application can only be made through actors that are registered on the special referral platform of the ESTIA program (e.g. NGOs), while referrals can only take place under the responsibility of the RIS. The decision to interrupt cash assistance to asylum applicants not accommodated in the reception system raised significant concerns, inter alia because it amounted to the withdrawal of material reception conditions to an estimated 25,000 asylum applicants, 681 without any personalised assessment or reasoned decision, thus potentially also amounting to a violation of article 20 of Directive 2013/33/EU (as transposed by article 57 L 4636/2019 which was afterwards replaced by article 61 of L. 4939/2022). Furthermore, as highlighted by 30 civil society organisations in a joint statement published in June 2021,682 the decision came at the detriment of integration. In practice, many of those affected were called to abandon a place of residence of their own choice –which they were able to sustain with the cash-based support– and to abandon their communities and friends, in order to return to camps, where they would have to be in isolation from society. The decision also failed to take into consideration the protection risks that could arise at least for some in the context of suddenly having to share accommodation in a camp. As observed,683 applicants from some communities ended up preferring losing the financial support out of fear (e.g. of being identified by authorities of their countries). It lastly also failed to take into consideration the severely limited capacity of NGOs, which were in practice called to implement the decision, to support their beneficiaries as part of the transition. With regard to distribution, in December 2022, a total of 4,728 asylum applicants (3,008 households) received cash assistance throughout Greece, primarily in the region of North Aegean (22%), Epirus (17%) and Central Macedonia (15%).684 This amounts to less than a third of the 15,785 asylum seekers reported by the MoMA as residing in Greece’s reception system during the same month, and to less than a fifth of total (22,170) asylum applications reported by the MoMA as pending decisions at 1 st and 2nd instance in the same month.685 It also helps to a degree to better contextualise observations made by GCR in the field. 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 MoMA, ‘The financial assistance to international protection applicants that are not accommodated in facilities under the responsibility of the MoMA or MoMA partners is abolished from 1/7/21’, 15 April 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3IEvEgx and ‘Pre-requisites for the disbursement of financial assistance to international protection applicants’, 25 May 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3IDe5xx. Ministerial Decision 115202/2021 op.cit and JMD 2857/2021 Amending JMD 2089/16-07-2021 on a ‘Common Framework for Managing Programmes that are assigned to the Special Secretariat for the Coordination and Management of Programmes under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund and other resources and are nor financed through National Programmes’ (Β’ 3120), Gov. Gazette 4496/2909-2021. Annex III,JMD 2089/16.7.2021 as amended by JMD 2857/29.9.2021. Estimates provided by UNHCR in the protection working group of 7 June 2021. Joint Statement: A big setback in integration: The cut in aid to asylum seekers, June 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3qMKIBV. As per information shared in the protection working group of 7 June 2021. MoMA, Factsheet December 2022: Programme ‘Financial assistance to applicants of international protection’, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/43JDRLi. MoMA, ‘Statistics: December 2022 - International Protection | Appendix A’, available at: https://bit.ly/3mIVrhX, tables 4 and 9a. 149