On 18 June 2024, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice rendered two important judgments regarding the recognition of refugee status between countries belonging to the Common European Asylum System. The conclusions reached by the Court can, by analogy, also be extended to cases of recognition of subsidiary protection, this being a form of protection specifically provided for within the EU.
Case C-753/22 (QY v. Bundesrepublik Deutschland) concerns a Syrian national who, after having obtained refugee status in Greece, applies for international protection in Germany. The competent German authority rejected her application for refugee status but granted her subsidiary protection. She then appealed against the refusal to grant her refugee status. The German court held that the applicant could not be transferred to Greece, since, because of the living conditions of refugees in that Member State, the applicant would run a serious risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment. At this point, however, the question that arises is whether, in such situations, the second Member State is obliged to recognise refugee status on the sole ground that that status has already been recognised by the first Member State, or whether it may carry out a new independent examination of that application on the merits.
The Court of Justice, referred for a preliminary ruling by the Federal Administrative Court, acknowledges that, at this stage of European Union law, Member States, in so far as they are entitled to do so, are not obliged to recognise automatically decisions granting refugee status taken by another Member State. Therefore, where a Member State cannot reject as inadmissible an application for international protection from an applicant, who has already been granted such protection by another Member State, on the ground that there is a serious risk of that applicant being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment in the other country, it must conduct a new, individual, complete and up-to-date examination of the conditions for granting international protection. That examination must take full account of the decision of the first Member State and of the elements supporting that decision, which implies the obligation to initiate, as soon as possible, a cooperation between the authorities of the two countries involved for the transmission of the file relating to the proceedings in the first State or, in any case, of all the relevant information.
If the applicant fulfils the conditions for international protection, the authority of the second Member State must grant him/her this status without having any discretionary power.
The second case, C-352/22 (A.), concerns a Turkish citizen of Kurdish origin suspected of murder, whose extradition is requested to Germany by Turkey. However, this person had previously been granted refugee status by the Italian authorities.
Responding to a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a German court, the Court of Justice rules that a third-country national may not be extradited from a Member State to his or her country of origin as long as the authority which recognised that status in another Member State has not withdrawn it, irrespective of the grounds on which the extradition request is made. To this end, the authority to which the extradition request is submitted must contact the authority that recognised that status but, as long as the latter has not revoked it, the person concerned cannot be extradited. Also in this second case, therefore, the need for cooperation between the authorities of the Member State to which the extradition request is addressed and those of the Member State that granted international protection is established. However, in this second ruling, this cooperation is the consequence not of a lack of recognition, but, on the contrary, of the recognition of the status in the second Member State, although, it could be said, functionally oriented to the prohibition of extradition as long as the status remains.
Although the two rulings may seem contradictory, the apparent different outcome in relation to the recognition of refugee status in this second judgement is explained by the different consequences that would follow for the refugee.
Although the two rulings may seem contradictory, the apparent different outcome in relation to the recognition of refugee status in this second judgement is explained by the different consequences that would follow for the refugee.
On the one hand, there is the situation in which a new application for recognition of international protection is filed in a second Member State. The latter may declare it inadmissible because there is already a previous Member State that has recognised the status and, therefore, guaranteed protection to the third-country national. Only if the applicant cannot be transferred to the first Member State because of the risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, is the second State obliged to initiate a new procedure that must conclude with the recognition of the status if the conditions required by the Qualification Directive are present.
On the other hand, there is the case of a third-country national who has been granted refugee status in a first Member State and resides in a second Member State without reapplying for international protection there. If an extradition request is received by the authorities of the latter country, this can only be responded to only after the status is revoked by the first State. Therefore, the final recognition of refugee status in another Member State is indeed binding on the authorities of a second country, but only with regard to the extradition procedure, since the surrender of the person to his or her country of origin would imply the removal of the person from the protection of the Common European Asylum System in a situation where one of the countries belonging to this System has recognised the need for protection according to EU and international law.
Caterina Fratea is Associate Professor of EU law at the Department of Law of the University of Verona, where she is also Director of the European Documentation Center (EDC). She is the Coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the e-journal Papers di diritto europeo.
Image credits: Mauro Bottaro, (c) European Union, 2017
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