On 13 October 2025, the Greek Ombudsman sent a letter to Ministers Thanos Plevris (Migration and Asylum), Michalis Chrysochoidis (Citizen Protection), and Vasilis Kikilias (Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy), setting out the independent authority’s observations and findings concerning the assessment of the three-month suspension of asylum applications, adopted in July of the same year, and the resulting detention pending return of newly arriving third-country nationals from North Africa.
It should be noted that a number of highly respected national and international institutions have raised concerns that the government’s suspension of asylum applications violates international and European legal rules governing Greece’s obligations regarding asylum and the international protection of refugees. (For more information, see Govwatch’s related in-depth report on the suspension of asylum applications as a violation of international law.)
As part of its intervention, the Ombudsman, first, documented an “insufficient operational preparedness” for the establishment of emergency and appropriate reception facilities for refugees and asylum seekers; second, highlighted the disproportionate burden placed on public services during the reception of migrants; and third, argued that the previously implemented three-month suspension of asylum applications should not be continued, in order to “restore compliance with the international and European framework governing access to asylum and the provision of appropriate and dignified reception conditions for irregularly arriving third-country nationals from North Africa.”
The Independent Authority had already expressed serious reservations to the Hellenic Parliament upon the submission of the relevant amendment [i.e. concerning the suspension of asylum applications], both regarding the lack of operational preparedness for managing the increasing arrivals in Crete and the incompatibility of the contested provision with rules of international and European Union law. As a constitutionally established independent authority, it likewise expressed the view that the three-month suspension of asylum applications breaches the country’s international and EU obligations.
In a state governed by the Rule of Law, the authorities are required to refrain from carrying out unlawful pushbacks of refugees and migrants from their territory. Accordingly, and within the framework of international law, Greece must ensure effective international protection procedures that safeguard asylum seekers from war, authoritarian and undemocratic regimes, and other risks they may face in their countries of origin.
As the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has also noted, European law requires border surveillance measures to be implemented in full compliance with human rights and refugee law, including the 1951 Refugee Convention, while States must also uphold their commitments and respect fundamental human rights, including the right to life and the right to asylum.
However, in the case under consideration, the Government’s legislative initiative raised, as also noted by the Greek Ombudsman, serious concerns regarding potential violations of numerous international and EU legal instruments, including the Geneva Convention, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and Directives 2013/32/EU, 2013/33/EU and 2008/115/EC. These instruments guarantee the protection of refugees in Greece, as well as their access to the asylum procedure.
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