Within this special competence, the independent authority carries out checks on sample operations at all stages of the process following a return decision against a third-country national and in particular: - the possible administrative detention of a returnee to guarantee removal; - the execution of police removal operations by land, sea or air. The results of these individual external inspections are sent to the administration, together with the Ombudsman’s comments and recommendations, and are published in an annual report which is presented to the Hellenic Parliament. The staff who make up the monitoring team of The Greek Ombudsman is widely trained and prepared to effectively carry out the task of checking the legality and legitimacy of the operations, omissions and practices put in place by the public security authorities. Inspections are constantly carried out in detention centres, with free access to each area of the place of detention, departure or transit. 23 During these operations, the absence of interpreters able to communicate with the returnees and provide information on their rights, give notice of the repatriation and the possibility of filing complaints or requests regarding their legal status has often been underlined. The Greek Ombudsman has repeatedly denounced the phenomenon of detention of thirdcountry nationals in the centres for reasons of public order, which occurs without verifying actual reasons for the use of these restrictive measures of personal liberty, despite the fact that detention of third-country citizens residing illegally is administrative detention. 24 It should also be recalled that — at European level — Greece is one of the most affected countries in terms of flows of people arriving from outside the EU, due to its geographical position and proximity to the Turkish border. In 2016, two important decisions taken at European level determined the increase and implementation of control and management measures for migratory flows of third-country nationals residing illegally and/or asylum seekers in the country: on the one hand, the establishment of the so-called hotspots in 5 Aegean islands, after the closure of the so-called “Corridor” of the eastern Balkans; on the other, the signing of the Readmission Agreement with Turkey on 18/03/2016. It is also for these reasons that, after the entry into force of EU regulation 2016/1624 for the conversion of FRONTEX into a European coastguard agency and for the strengthening of its competences in the management of external borders, The Greek Ombudsman was invited, as a national mechanism for the protection of rights, to collaborate with the recently established European reporting mechanism of FRONTEX, as well as to appoint investigators for the establishment of an EU pool of monitors to participate in European return operations. In particular, violations were found regarding conditions in some detention centres (e.g. the Aliens Police Division of Thessaloniki) such as returnees not being allowed to access open air areas, in general conditions not in line with required standards. 24 On this point, it is worth recalling the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights - Saadi vs United Kingdom, 2008, n. 13229/2003, paragraph 78. 23