standard of living for asylum seekers that ensures their subsistence and protects their physical and mental health, based on the respect of human dignity’. As per the same article, the same standard of living is to be guaranteed for asylum seekers in detention. Special care is to be provided for those with special reception needs.854 Article 44 Asylum Code states that, during the reception and identification procedures, the Director (Διοικητής) and staff of the RIC or CCAC must ensure that third country nationals or stateless persons: a) live in decent living conditions, b) maintain their family unity, c) have access to emergency health care and necessary treatment or psychosocial support, d) receive the appropriate treatment, in case they belong to vulnerable groups, particularly if they are UAM or persons with disabilities, e) are sufficiently informed about their rights and obligations, f) have access to guidance and legal advice and assistance, g) maintain contact with institutions and civil society organisations active in the field of migration and human rights that provide legal or social assistance and h) have the right to communicate with their relatives and loved ones. Asylum seekers are entitled to reception conditions from the time they submit an asylum application and throughout the asylum procedure. As regards children, reception conditions apply to minors, unaccompanied or not, and to separated minors, regardless of whether they have submitted an application for international protection.855 In case of status recognition, reception conditions are terminated (with a few exceptions) within 30 days of the notification of the positive decision. In the specific case of UAM, this time limit starts counting from the time they reach adulthood.856 The law also foresees that the provision of all or part of the material reception conditions presupposes that asylum seekers lack employment or that their employment does not provide them with sufficient resources to maintain an adequate standard of living that is sufficient to safeguard their health and sustenance.857 The latter is examined in proportion to the financial criteria determining eligibility for the Social Solidarity Benefit (Κοινωνικό Επίδομα Αλληλεγγύης, KEA),858 which was renamed to Minimum Guaranteed Income (Ελάχιστο Εγγυημένο Εισόδημα) in 2020.859 The law also provides that reception conditions can be reduced or withdrawn following an individual and justified decision by the competent reception authority, based on the full set of grounds provided under article 20 of the (recast) Reception Directive, including if it is established that the applicant concealed their financial resources or if they have lodged a subsequent asylum application.860 That being said, delays in accessing reception continued to be reported in 2023, on account of chronic delays in accessing asylum on the mainland, which have persisted even after the substitution of the skype registration system with the MoMA’s new electronic platform in the summer of 2022 (also see Access to the procedure on the mainland).861 During the months preceding the new platform’s operationalisation, and by contrast to temporary protection applications (who, with scarce exceptions, were all registered in a timely manner), access to asylum from the mainland for people who had not undergone first reception procedures became a near impossibility, leaving many applicants in a state of legal limbo. Yet, as noted elsewhere,862 even after its operationalisation, the online platform has been frequently unavailable/not functioning and, when functional, it has been observed that appointments for the full registration of an 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 Article 59(1) Asylum Code. Article 37(1) and 62(3) Asylum Code. Article 109 Asylum Code. Article 59(3) Asylum Code. Article 235 L 4389/2016. Article 29 L. 4659/2020. Article 61 Asylum Code. MoMA, Launch of the online application platform for asylum seeker registration appointments, 13 July 2022, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/43PpBki. For more on the skype system, see MIT, Lives on Hold: Access to Asylum on Mainland Greece, Crete and Rhodes, November 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3JOqBe2. MIT, Blocked from the system: Voices of people excluded from the asylum procedure on mainland Greece, Crete and Rhodes, May 2022, https://bit.ly/45wetd3. MIT, Statement on new registration asylum procedure, 1st September 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3Ms6Onu. GCR, Submission of The Greek Council for Refugees to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe concerning the groups of cases of M.S.S. v. Greece (Application No. 30696/09) and Rahimi v. Greece (8687/08), July 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yhjfta5s. 176