The Report “The Challenge of Migratory Flows and Refugee Protection - Reception Conditions and Procedures” focuses on the conditions and administrative procedures for the reception of applicants for international protection. The edition is material based on reports from on-site inspections at Controlled Access Facilities for Temporary Accommodation of Asylum Seekers, carried out by Senior Investigators of the Greek Ombudsman.

This publication is one of the actions under the project “Providing fundamental rights expertise to stakeholders operating in Greek migration and asylum system”. The project benefits from a co-funding from the EEA Grants (funding period 2014-2021), which represent the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway towards a green, competitive and inclusive Europe, and national funding.

This Report is the fourth one since the Ombudsman was assigned the specific responsibility for the external, independent monitoring of the implementation of the UN Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities. Like the previous reports, it examines deficiencies, insufficiencies and distortions in the existing legislation, the secondary regulations, the administrative function and practice.

It presents the policy fields where there has been progress in the attuning of the national framework to the Convention’s provisions, it notes any delays and/or futile regulations, it addresses and often reintroduces recommendations for the substantial transposition of the Convention’s provisions into statutory regula tions, it presents the Authority’s recommendations which have been accepted and formed specific legislative interventions, it evaluates the degree of effective ness of the policies’ implementation and it displays the administration’s level of readiness and responsiveness.

In 2022, the restrictive measures taken to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The lifting of these measures is directly reflected in the volume of cases the Mechanism was asked to investigate in the previous year. Indeed, following the de-escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the gradual lifting of the relevant restrictive measures, the number of cases involving the security forces that were referred to the Mechanism for investigation returned to pre-pandemic levels, i.e. those of year 2019, as the security forces had been assigned the task of monitoring compliance with these measures and this resulted in a number of complaints of violence and other forms of police abuse in the two previous years. It is worth noting that, compared to prepandemic data, the number of citizen complaints filed to EMIDIPA increased nearly by 50% - which solidly demonstrates the high level of public confidence in the Mechanism and in its safeguarding functions and the Mechanism’s everincreasing recognition by the general public.

A learning initiative to help Ombudsman officers across Europe deliver quality services to the citizen was launched on January 16, 2024, in Manchester, UK. The Learning Academy of the European International Ombudsman Institution (IOI) will serve as a specialized forum and training center where Ombudsmen and their officers will exchange ideas and practices, and develop new skills and modes of cooperation.