of the objective of the Geneva Convention and of relevant European and national legislation on refugee protection is essentially rendered null and void.’ According to internal SOPs of the Asylum Service from October 2021, still in force to date, asylum seekers of the nationalities mentioned in the relevant JMD, who have crossed from Türkiye a year ago or more must be considered as not having a special link with the country or that, in any case, the special link with Türkiye has ceased to exist. Based on these new instructions, the majority of cases examined before the RAOs on the islands received admissibility decisions and an examination of their asylum applications were examined on their merits. Several first instance decisions with the same reasoning have been issued since October 2021, namely since the aforementioned SOP started to be implemented. This has been of great importance for all Syrian cases, and even Afghanis and Somalis stuck in “limbo” in Greece for more than a year, many of whom were waiting for the examination of their subsequent applications. However, this practice was not consistent. For instance, there were cases to which the Asylum Service applied the new JMD even if the applicants had already been referred to the regular procedure. On 7 October 2021, GCR and Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) filed a judicial review before the Greek Council of State for the annulment of the JMD 42799/03.06.2021 designating Türkiye as a safe third country for nationals of Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.767 On 4 March 2022, requests for the continuation of the hearing were filed before the Council of State for the annulment of the subsequent JMD, 458568/15.12.2021 of the Minister of Migration and Asylum and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. The application for annulment was examined before the Plenary of the Council of State on 11 March 2022. On 3 February 2023, the Plenary of the Council of State issued its decision No. 177/2023,768 which postpones the final judgment and refers the following questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, given that there are reasonable doubts as to the meaning of Article 38 of the Directive: a) Must Article 38 of the Asylum Procedures Directive, read in conjunction with Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, be interpreted as precluding national legislation, designating a third country as generally safe for certain categories of applicants for international protection, which has undertaken the legal obligation to readmit those categories of applicants to its territory, but it follows that for a long time (in case more than twenty months) this country has refused readmissions and that the possibility to change the country’s attitude in the near future does not appear to have been explored? Or, b) Must this Article be interpreted as meaning that readmission to the third country is not a cumulative condition for the adoption of the national act designating a third country as safe for these categories of applicants, but it is a cumulative condition for the adoption of an individual act rejecting a specific application for international protection as inadmissible on the ground of ‘safe third country’? Or, c) Must Article 38 be interpreted as meaning that the possibility of readmission to the ‘safe third country’ must be established only at the time of enforcement of the decision, where that decision to reject the application for international protection is based on the ‘safe third country’ ground?769 2.1 Safety criteria Applications lodged by Syrian, Afghan, Somali, Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals In 2022, the Asylum Service issued 8,611 first instance decisions on applications lodged by Syrian (initially subject to the fast-track border procedure), Afghan, Somali, Bangladeshi and Pakistani applicants, 767 768 769 GCR, Decision declaring Türkiye a ‘safe third country’ brought before Greek Council of State, 7 October 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3iLkeMJ. Plenary of the Council of State, 177/2023, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/426WSpv. See also RSA, Key points of the Greek Council of State ruling on the ‘safe third country’ concept’, 17 February 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3FB91KC. European Legal Network on Asylum (ELENA), Greece: Preliminary reference regarding Türkiye as a safe third country, 3 February 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3LhmQzH. 160