The case concerned an action for annulment submitted by the applicants before Council of State, Greece, which is the referring court, against the first joint ministerial order and against the second joint ministerial order, on the ground, inter alia, that they were incompatible with Article 86 of the Law on international protection and with Article 38 of Directive 2013/32. The applicants argue, first, that the possibility of the applicants for international protection covered by those orders being readmitted to Türkiye is not guaranteed ‘by international agreements’ and, secondly, that there is no reasonable prospect for the applicants for international protection to be readmitted to Türkiye since that third country has, since March 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, frozen the readmissions of such applicants to its territory.

The Greek Council of State referred questions for preliminary ruling to the CJEU asking whether Article 38 of the recast Asylum Procedures Directive (APD), interpreted in conjunction with Article 18 of the EU Charter precludes national legislation classifying as generally safe, for certain categories of applicants for international protection, a third country which has undertaken a legal obligation to allow those categories of applicants for international protection to be readmitted to its territory, but for a long period of time (which in this case exceeds 20 months) that country refuses readmissions and a change in the country's attitude is not plausible in the near future.

The Council of State also asked whether Article 38 of the recast APD is to be interpreted as meaning that readmission to the third country is not a cumulative condition for the adoption of the national law declaring a third country as safe for certain categories of applicants for international protection, but is a cumulative condition for the adoption of the individual act rejecting a specific application for international protection as inadmissible on the ground of the ‘safe third country’; or whether readmission to the ‘safe third country’ must be verified only at the time of the execution of the decision.

The CJEU ruled that Article 38 of the recast APD, read in the light of Article 18 of the EU Charter must be interpreted as not precluding legislation of a Member State classifying a third country as generally safe for certain categories of applicants for international protection where, despite the legal obligation to which it is subject, that third country has generally suspended the admission or readmission of those applicants to its territory and there is no foreseeable prospect of a change in that position.

However, the CJEU also stated that although a third country may be designated as generally safe, if readmissions are not taking place the Member State concerned cannot reject their asylum applications as inadmissible, nor can the examination of the applications be unjustifiably postponed, as Article 38 of the recast APD must not be interpreted so as to deprive in practice the right of an applicant to obtain the status of beneficiary of international protection.