CCAC, which was increased overnight from 2,040 to 3,659 places.922 In the same report, RSA highlights how during 2023 new arrivals in the Samos CCAC have been forced to sleep on the floor, without mattresses, in a room originally intended to serve as a restaurant, due to the lack of actual accommodation places. Amidst these challenges, as observed by legal aid actors in February 2024,923 a worrying practice has started being implemented in the Samos CCAC. Namely, applicants are given the choice of leaving the island, by having their geographical restriction lifted pursuant to MD 1140/2019, on the condition that they sign a solemn declaration, stating the following: “I do not wish to be accommodated at the CCAC of Samos or any other regional service of RIS. I will live on my own and the address is…… and I have been informed of the consequences of my nonappearance before the examining authority”. Notwithstanding practical questions, such as how it is feasible to ensure that newly arrived applicants, with presumably no previous link to Greece, are able to secure safe accommodation for themselves while stranded on an island, the practice also virtually amounts to applicants’ being called to renounce their right to reception conditions, on account of the State’s inability to meet its obligations under the recast Reception Directive. Crucially, applicants are not informed about the consequences of this practice, including the fact that signing the declaration is tantamount to losing access to financial aid provided in the context of reception and, in case of status recognition, to the Helios integration programme, given both have a residency requirement linked to ongoing stay in the reception system, nor are they provided a copy of this solemn declaration.924 In sum, the practice of indiscriminate imposition of the geographical restriction since the launch of the EUTürkiye Statement has for years been a risk factor, intrinsically linked with the EU’s ongoing externalisation approach, that fosters and maintains conditions of possibility for the constant (re)emergence of overcrowded, substandard reception conditions on the Greek islands. At the same time, based on the aforementioned developments in Samos, it also gives rise to questionable practices, arguably aimed at managing the bottlenecks created by this approach, which nevertheless only end up shifting and widening the problems beyond the scope of reception (i.e., impacting integration as well), at the expense of applicants and beneficiaries’ rights. In September 2020, the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR) reiterated its firm and consistently expressed position, calling on the Greek Government to ‘review the dead-end policy with regards to the imposition of a geographical restriction on the Eastern Aegean islands and to move forward with the abolition of this onerous measure’.925 The GNCHR also noted that regardless of circumstances, ‘any geographical restriction must be imposed following an individual assessment and a reasoned administrative act, giving the applicant the possibility of effective judicial protection, as this [measure] introduces a restriction on [the applicant’s] freedom of movement’. In May 2021, amid the lowest levels of overcrowding observed since 2015, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights similarly underlined that “action to improve the lingering substandard living conditions in the Reception and Identification Centres must not be delayed and that all appropriate standards must be met, and overcrowding prevented. With the new reception facilities reportedly set to operate as closed centres, the Commissioner is concerned that this will lead to large-scale and long-term deprivation of liberty. The Commissioner also ‘urge[d] the Greek authorities to reconsider the closed nature of these centres, in order to ensure that the regime applicable to these facilities safeguards the freedom of movement of their residents, in line with the relevant Council of Europe standards.’ She further reiterated that ‘the policy of containment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants on the Aegean islands 922 923 924 925 RSA, Disgraceful living conditions in the ‘state-of-the-art’ Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) of Samos, 6 February 2024, available at: https://bit.ly/3WelY5Z. As per information shared in February 2024 by legal aid actors under the newly established Border Legal Aid sub-working group, which covers the islands of Lesvos, Samos and Kos. Information received on 12 March 2024. Ibid. National Commission for Human Rights, Report on the refugee and migration issue (‘Έkθεση αναφοράς για το προσφυγικό και to μεταναστευτικό ζήτημα’), September 2020, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3vuIqre, p. 44. 187