As mentioned above, due to significant gaps in the provision of reception and identification procedures in 2022, owing to a significant understaffing of EODY units and other issues, GCR has found that for a considerable number of applicants the asylum procedure was initiated without a proper medical screening and/or a psychosocial assessment having been concluded. Accordingly, where vulnerability is not identified before the asylum procedure the initiation of a vulnerability assessment and further referral for vulnerability identification lies to a great extent at the discretion of the caseworker. However, according to GCR’s observations, the referral for further medical/psychosocial screening by the caseworker after the first instance interview before the competent RAO is not common practice. Also, according to GCR’s knowledge, the understaffing of state authorities in combination with the constant pressure to process more asylum applications more quickly, resulted in a serious undermining of procedural legal safeguards and thus to decisions of poor quality and unjustified rejections in many cases. GCR has documented many cases where the asylum interview took place before the medical examination of the asylum seeker, who was afterwards rejected as non-credible because of his/her inability to provide all the dates and details of certain events and narrate his/her story in a chronological order, although the person suffered from acute psychiatric problems (e.g. psychosis), as was later proved. As far as GCR is aware, Article 72(3) of the Asylum Code (exemption from the fast-track border procedure and referral to the regular procedure due to vulnerability) was not applied by the Asylum Service to any case without a prior lifting of the geographical restriction during 2022. It was also noted that after the lifting of geographical restriction for reasons not related to vulnerability, Article 72(3) of the Asylum Code was applied in several cases by the Asylum Service and the case was referred to the regular procedure without the person being identified as vulnerable. If the interview of first instance had already been conducted before the decision to lift the geographical restriction and the referral to the regular procedure due to vulnerability, it was not conducted again in accordance with the guarantees provided by Article 72(2) of the Asylum Code. Data for applications exempted from the fast-track border procedure and referred to the regular procedure on grounds of vulnerability was not provided. Throughout 2022 the various RAOs in the different islands followed different practices as regards the conduct of asylum interviews (see the Regular procedure and Fast-track border procedure). 1.1.2 Vulnerability identification in the mainland On 22 November 2021, the Greek authorities issued a circular establishing that asylum seekers (except for unaccompanied minors) who have not been through the reception and identification process can submit their asylum applications only in the Reception and Identification Centres (RIC) on the Aegean island hotspots of Samos, Chios, Lesvos, Leros and in the Evros region. Following strong opposition in the parliament however, the government backed up and clarified that applicants will not be transferred from the mainland to the islands, without however providing further information on the competent authorities for the registration of said applications. According to the authorities, the island centres will exclusively process the cases of people arriving by sea. Furthermore, Skype is no longer used as a channel to access to the asylum procedure for new applicants. 460 Consequently, vulnerable persons in the mainland (with the exception of unaccompanied minors) who have not been subjected to the reception and identification procedures were not able to have access to the asylum procedure via Skype. Moreover, even if a lawyer intervenes and requests the registration of the asylum application of a vulnerable person in the mainland, a medical document of vulnerability issued from a public entity is most of the times needed according to the competent Regional Asylum Offices. 460 Efsyn, ‘Μόνο σε νησιά και Έβρο τα νέα αιτήματα ασύλου’, 24 November 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3HqcnOM. 111