T.Š., a Serbian national, and K.Š., his Ukrainian wife, entered Croatia together in March 2022. K.Š. requested and was granted temporary protection. In her application, however, she did not mention T.Š. and declared that she was divorced. On his part, the applicant obtained a residence permit issued pursuant to the Aliens Act, which was subsequently renewed by his employers on his behalf. The last application for renewal was submitted in mid-March 2025, but no decision had been issued by June 2025, when the State Inspectorate found that the applicant was working without a valid permit. On 28 July 2025, T.Š. applied for temporary protection on the basis of family reunification, stating that he wished to remain in Croatia with his Ukrainian wife.
On 13 February 2026, the Ministry of the Interior rejected T.Š.'s application for temporary protection. The Ministry based its decision on several findings. First, the applicant's wife had declared herself divorced in her 2022 application for temporary protection. Second, the spouses' registered places of residence in Croatia had not coincided between 2022 and the submission of the family reunification application, only becoming the same thereafter. Third, the applicant had been found by the State Inspectorate to be working in Croatia without a valid residence and work permit, in breach of Article 93(1)(7) of the Aliens Act, which constituted an obstacle to the issuance of a further residence and work permit. Finally, the applicant had stated in his application for temporary protection that his reason for leaving Ukraine was solely to visit family in Serbia and arrange employment in Croatia.
The Ministry concluded that the applicant's stay in Croatia had not been motivated by a need for temporary protection but by economic reasons. It further considered that only after he had been found working illegally in 2025, and had realised that he would not be granted a further residence and work permit, did he seek to abuse the institution of temporary protection by applying for family reunification and beginning to reside at the same address as his wife, to whom he had been formally married since 2015. The applicant challenged the decision before the Administrative Court.
The court held that Article 63 of the Aliens Act does not provide a legal basis for family reunification with a foreign national enjoying temporary protection. Such reunification must instead be governed by Article 89 of the Act on International and Temporary Protection (ITPA), which provides that: “(1) an application for family reunification shall be submitted by a foreign national under temporary protection or by a member of his or her family who wishes to come to the Republic of Croatia; (2) a family member who reunites with a foreign national under temporary protection shall be granted temporary protection.”
The court also referred to Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/382 of 4 March 2022, pursuant to which displaced persons who left Ukraine because of the security situation and who cannot safely return owing to the armed conflict, including their family members who were residing in Ukraine, are entitled to temporary protection. The Decision defines family members as spouses or unmarried partners, their minor children, and other close dependent relatives who lived in the same household.
The court observed that a literal interpretation of Article 89 of the ITPA would suggest a restrictive approach, according to which the provision applies only to family members wishing to come to Croatia, and not to those already residing there. However, it considered that the purpose of Article 89(2) is not merely to facilitate the physical reunification of family members but also to ensure the alignment of their legal status. The court further noted that Directive 2001/55/EC of 20 July 2001 on minimum standards for giving temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons, does not preclude the granting of temporary protection to persons who are already present in the Member State concerned.
The court therefore concluded that it was legally possible for the applicant to obtain temporary protection on the basis of family reunification, provided that a genuine marital community existed between him and his wife, this being an essential condition for family reunification, and thus provided that the application did not constitute an abuse of rights.
The court further held that it appeared illogical to conclude that the applicant and his wife had entered Croatia together immediately before 24 February 2022, yet had done so for entirely different reasons, namely that the wife sought protection while the applicant came solely for economic reasons. It acknowledged that the spouses' different registered addresses could constitute evidence supporting the conclusion that no genuine marital life existed, but found that this circumstance alone was insufficient to establish the absence of a shared family life. As regards the wife's declaration that she was divorced, the court observed that, although this did not support the applicant's case, it was not a statement made by the applicant himself in the administrative proceedings and the Ministry had undertaken no further evidentiary measures in relation to this issue, such as hearing the wife as a witness.
Accordingly, the court set aside the contested decision and remitted the case to the Ministry for a new determination. It instructed the Ministry to conduct additional evidentiary proceedings to establish the decisive question of whether a genuine marital community existed between the applicant and his wife. The court added that such a community could not be regarded as genuine if it had been re-established only at the time of the application after the spouses had lived separately for several years.