authorities systematically deny any wrongdoing and refuse to investigate these reports; this practice has severely escalated since the crisis in Evros (see section below). The new Legal Asylum Framework Meanwhile, the new controversial law on asylum procedures, adopted on November 1st, 2019, and came into force on January 1st 2020, included sweeping and fundamental changes to the existing asylum system, narrowing the criteria of eligibility for the refugee status and the categories of “vulnerability”; extending the detention period for asylum-seekers; accelerating the asylum procedures by limiting at the same time procedural safeguards; accelerating the returns of those deemed ineligible. It also included provision for the creation of a “safe countries of origin” list and other several stringent provisions, which could actually pose continuous traps to asylum seekers, facing the direct danger of a void asylum application in case of non-compliance with the asylum procedures. The new Law 4636/2019, which significantly reformed the existing international protection system in Greece, received strong criticism by the vast majority of the actors related with this field of work. On April 10, 2020, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum submitted a bill entitled “Improvement of migration legislation” to public consultation, introducing further controversial reform to the Greek legislative asylum framework, proposing inter alia that the detention of third country nationals under return procedures should be the rule and that alternatives to detention will be applied only exceptionally. This amendment as adopted by the Greek parliament and came into force on 12/05/2020, is in clear violation with the relevant European Directive as it introduces, among others, a generalized character to the measure of administrative detention, without any prior individualized assessment. Crisis on European Borders in Evros Region Turkey’s capacity to weaponize the refugee issue was a product of the EU-Turkey deal; on February 28th 2020, President Erdogan announced that “Turkey will no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe”, informing at the same time the population with written or oral messages on their mobiles that the borders with Greece are open for free crossing. 300 refugees and migrants gathered 7|Page