a 2016 police circular.467 Their application will be examined under the fast-track border procedure, which offers limited guarantees.468 For further information about the situation of beneficiaries of international protection returned to Greece, see ‘Return of beneficiaries of international protection to Greece’ under Housing. 3. Admissibility procedure 3.1. General (scope, criteria, time limits) Under Article 89 Asylum Code, an application can be considered inadmissible on the following grounds: v Another EU Member State has granted international protection status to the applicant; v Another EU Member State has accepted responsibility under the Dublin Regulation for the applicant; v When the First Country of Asylum concept is applied; v When the Safe Third Country concept is applied; v The application is a Subsequent Application and no “new essential elements” have been presented; v A family member has submitted a separate application to the family application without justification for lodging a separate claim. Unless otherwise provided, the Asylum Service must decide on the admissibility of an application within 30 days.469 Article 91(5) Asylum Code, transposing Article 38(4) of Directive 2013/32/EU (Asylum Procedures Directive), provides that where the third country to which an applicant is meant to be returned does not allow the applicant to enter its territory, his/her application shall be examined on the merits by the Competent Examination Authorities. The examination of the safe third country concept in practice used to take place under the scope of the fast-track border procedure since 2016. More specifically, up until June 2021 it was applied exclusively to Syrian nationals who fell under the EU Türkiye Statement, meaning those who had entered Greece via the Greek Aegean islands and who were subject to a geographical restriction. Syrians whose geographical limitation was lifted were then channelled to the mainland and were examined under the regular procedure. The situation changed significantly in 2021 following the Joint Ministerial Decision issued on 7 June 2021, designating Türkiye as a safe third country (STC) for asylum applicants coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.470 Apart from the numerous concerns that have been repeatedly raised as to whether Türkiye should be considered a “safe third country”,471 an additional significant element of the unfeasibility of this new decision is the fact that Türkiye has not been accepting any readmissions from Greece since March 2020.472 As a consequence, refugees whose applications have been/are rejected as inadmissible based on the “safe third country” concept end up in a state of legal limbo in Greece, exposed to a direct risk of destitution and detention, without access to an in-merit examination of their application . 467 468 469 470 471 472 Police Circular No 1604/16/1195968, available in Greek at: https://tinyurl.com/ye85mfbc. See to this regard: RSA/PRO ASYLl, Legal Status and Living Conditions of a Syrian asylum-seeker upon his return to Greece under the Dublin Regulation, December 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/3fMEfzH. Article 88(2) Asylum Code. Different deadlines are provided, e.g, for subsequent applications; when the safe third country concept is examined under the fast-track border procedure, etc. Joint Ministerial Decision (JMD) 42799/2021, Gov. Gazette 2425/Β/7-6-2021, available in Greek at: https://tinyurl.com/2z8588nb . Indicatively see: GCR, Greece deems Turkey ‘safe’, but refugees are not: The substantive examination of asylum applications is the only safe solution for refugees, 14 June 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3E3qgCe. For instance see: MoMA, New request from Greece for the return of 1.908 illegal economic migrants to Türkiye, 28 July 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3rl5bhy; European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document: Türkiye 2020 Report, 6 October 2020, https://bit.ly/3xgt4aK, p. 48. 100