Case registered before the CJEU under C-445/26 [Spirink]

The applicants are stateless Palestinians, consisting of a family composed by a father, mother, son, and daughter. They are from Libya, but they do not possess neither a nationality, nor a residence permit for any country, currently lacking permission for admission and/or residence from any third country. They are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), but they are not from any area of UNRWA's operations, and they have not have previously sought nor obtained protection and/or assistance from UNRWA. Only the mother spent her first years in Libya.

The Minister for Asylum and Migration rejected their asylum applications as unfounded by decision of 11 September 2023, and they appealed before the District Court of the Hague seated in Roermond (referring court) on 9 October 2023.

From the outset, the court had to examine whether the applicants, as stateless Palestinians registered with UNRWA, would be excluded from refugee protetcion and whether the situation provided under Article 12 (1)(a) of the recast Qualification Directive (QD) would apply to their situation. The court reiterated that this article applies to third-country nationals and stateless persons falling under Article 1D of the Geneva Convention and, citing the UNHCR Guideline no 13 on the applicability of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention, it considered that the applicants fall under this provision.

The referring court decided to stay the proceedings and submit the following question before the CJEU for a preliminary ruling:

Must Article 12(1)(a) of the recast QD, read in conjunction with Articles 1 and 21(2) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter), be interpreted as meaning that stateless persons of Palestinian origin who have been registered by UNRWA but who have not resided in UNRWA's area of operations prior to the lodging of an application for international protection and/or have not previously applied for protection and assistance from UNRWA are not excluded from the regime provided for in … Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95? Where the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of the recast QD is applicable, can stateless persons of Palestinian origin benefit from the provisions of this Directive ‘ipso facto' if it transpires, at the time of the lodging of the application for international protection, the examination of that application by the administrative authority or the judicial review of the decision on that application, that the access of those stateless persons of Palestinian origin to UNRWA's area of operation is not guaranteed?

In essence, the referring court sought clarification on whether a full and non-restrictive application of the Geneva Convention can lead to the establishment in the EU law of further requirements regarding the applicability of the first sentence of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention. The court considered that it cannot and recalled that the European asylum system mirrors the Geneva Convention, which is the cornerstone of the international legal system. As a result, it asserted that EU law cannot limit the scope of the protection scheme that the international community has incorporated into the Geneva Convention for stateless Palestinians. The referring court affirmed that, in its view, the applicants fall within the ambit of the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of the recast QD, interpretation which it found in line with the UNHCR Guideline no 13 on the applicability of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention.

The court further pointed to the fact that the applicants do not hold the nationality of any of UNRWA's host countries, nor do they possess a residence permit or other authorisation to reside in those countries. In addition, the court indicated that UNRWA has no mandate to resettle refugees and cannot seek permanent and durable solutions for Palestinian refugees.

It asked whether, under these circumstance, where the applicants do not originate from an UNRWA's area of ​​operations and are therefore unable to travel 'to an area of ​​operation where that stateless persons formerly habitually resided', these circumstances equate with a situation in which the protection or assistance of UNRWA must be deemed to have ceased, resulting into the applicants being therefore eligible 'ipso facto' for refugee protection. Underlying that the factual situation in the case of SN, LN against Zamestnik-predsedatel na Darzhavna agentsia za bezhantsite (C-563/22, 13 June 2024) differed from the facts of the present case in so far as the applicants do not come from any of the five areas of UNRWA's ​​operations, the court questioned whether this situation can be held against them by deeming that protection ‘ipso facto' based on the second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of the recast QD would not be applicable. In any event, irrespective of UNRWA's capacity to fulfil its mandate at the time when the outcome of the present case will be final, the applicants will be unable to seek UNRWA's assistance or protection or to enjoy it. This is because, due to lack of a residence permit or authorisation to reside in one the host countries of UNRWA, the applicants currently do not have access to any of UNRWA's areas of operations and cannot effectively seek protection there.

The referring court also considered that an interpretation to the contrary would mean, in practice, that a return decision could not be implemented because Libya cannot be regarded as a country of return in view of the requirements of the Return Directive and the CJEU interpretation in the recent judgment of Tadmur (C-202/25, 24 March 2026) which established that no return decision can be adopted when no country of destination can be designated and to which the obligation to return may relate. 

Consequently, in a scenario where the applicants would not be granted a residence permit in the Netherlands, and owing to their stateless Palestinian status, they would be permanently unable to move to another Member State or to a third-country, the court questioned whether such situation would be compatible with human dignity pursuant to Article 1 of the EU Charter. In this context, it recalled that the factual circumstances in the CJEU case of Changu (C-352/23, 12 September 2024)  were different because the applicants in the present case have been registered with UNRWA thus being recognised as refugees by the international community.

The referring court recalled that, if a third-country national has been granted refugee status by a Member State, but that third-country national cannot place himself under the protection of the Member State granting the status, full account must be taken, when assessing his application for international protection lodged in another Member State, of that previously granted refugee status and the elements supporting that decision. By analogy, the referring court asserted that, if a stateless Palestinian refugee, recognised by UNRWA, cannot place themselves under the protection of UNRWA but they are not entitled to the protection offered by the recast QD provisions, then their recognition as refugees by the international community would remain devoid of significance. Consequently, the court also inquired whether this would be compatible with Article 21(2) of the EU Charter, which prohibits any discrimination on grounds of nationality within the scope of the Treaties and without prejudice to their specific provisions.

Against this background, the referring court proposed the following answer by the CJEU to its preliminary question:

Article 12(1)(a), of the recast QD, read in conjunction with Articles 1 and 21(2), of the EU Charter, must be interpreted as meaning that stateless Palestinians who have been registered by UNRWA but who, prior to submitting an application for international protection in the Union, did not reside in the area of ​​operation of UNRWA and/or did not previously request protection and assistance from UNRWA, are not excluded from the scheme referred to in Article 12, paragraph 1 (a), of Directive 2011/95. If the first sentence of Article 12, paragraph 1 (a), of Directive 2011/95 applies, and if, at the time of the submission of the application for international protection, the assessment of that application by the administrative authority or the judicial review of the decision on that application shows that access of that Stateless Palestinian to the UNRWA area of ​​operation is not secured, he shall be eligible 'ipso facto' for the provisions under Directive 2011/95.