According to a statement by the President of the Council of State, Michalis Pikranou, the plenary of the Supreme Court of Appeal at a majority conference was annulled by the joint decision of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Migration and Asylum, with which he was described as Turkey.

Thus, as long as Turkey does not accept the return of asylum seekers to its territory, the demands of applicants international protection cannot be rejected by the Greek authorities as unacceptable, but must be considered in their essence.

More specifically, the CoE plenary at a conference ruled for 5 cases discussed in plenary last February and concerned a) the drawing up of a national list of safe third countries including Turkey as a safe third country for applicants for international protection with a country of origin in Syria,

(b) Decisions of Independent Appeals Authorities, which have been rejected as unacceptable requests for the granting of international protection on the designation of Turkey as a safe third country.

The Plenary of the CoE ruled, by a majority, that “from the details of the dossier accompanying 538595/12.12.2023 a joint decision of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Migration and Asylum on” Determination of Third Countries characterized as secure and drawing up a national list in accordance with Article 91 of Article 91. Asylum, it does not appear that for the designation of Turkey as a safe third country for the aforementioned categories of foreigners, the criteria raised in Article 91 of Law 4939/2022 were duly assessed.

And this is because the recommendation is limited to the listing of texts of international sources taken into account, without specifically the information contained in the sources in relation to the criteria in order to substantiate the assistance of legal conditions for the designation.

Subsequently, the CoE ruled that “a joint ministerial decision must be canceled 538595/12.12.2023, in so far as it relates to the designation of Turkey as a safe third country for applicants for international protection with a country of origin in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia”.

He also unanimously considered the CoE that the individual decisions of the Independent Appeals Committees, which rejected the demands of international protection of applicants for foreign Afghan nationality, on the grounds that they entered Greece from Turkey, which is a safe country, must be annulled.

This is because the dossier data shows that Turkey has generally suspended the readiness of applicants for international protection in its territory since March 2020, the competent Greek authorities, as accepted by the decision of the DEE. of 4.10.2024, may not reject international protection applications as inadmissible, on the grounds that Turkey is a safe third country.